The Legacy of Shunshin no Shisui
by AlexNameless
Summary: Harry is born with all the memories & life experiences of a dead 15 year old ninja from a place he'd never heard of called Konoha. His parents thought it was odd that he knows Japanese for instance but the Dursleys think its freakish. Will he find acceptance in the magical world? What will Dumbledore & Voldemort think of a shinobi-wizard like him? ABANDONED cont. as 'Body Flicker'
1. Prologue

Harry James Potter was born on July 31st, 1990, with wild, spiky black hair, green eyes, and a pale complexion. He resembled both of his parents, of course, with his mother's eyes and his father's nose and face, but there were hints of another in him. James' grandfather Henry's twin brother Charlus had married Dorea Black, not Henry, so there was no explanation for the spiky, wild jet-black hair that the boy sported. The Potters had chocolate brown hair ever since Lady Iolanthe Peverell herself married the muggleborn cast-off son Hardwin Potter. The nurses said he was a mixed soul. A dead person can move on or become a ghost or be reincarnated or their soul can show up mixed in with another's. The nurses aren't well versed in the subject, so the Potters take the boy home, resolving to watch him but leave it be for now.

From the very beginning, he frequently woke up from nightmares of his other self's past life. His family was only able to gather that whatever the other soul was, it had been Japanese. He did odd things here and there, like bowing at people or putting his hands together before eating, and said words they didn't always recognize. Harry was a happy little boy, always smiling and laughing. He gave his parents, and the Marauders a run for their money, climbing on everything including the outside of the staircase. Even as his parents worried themselves sick over the possibility of a traitor in their midst, and Remus and Sirius got into a row about it and broke up and Remus stopped coming around, Harry was their light in such a dark situation.

Lily enjoyed putting him to bed. She tried to keep the same night time routine every night for him. She'd give him a bath and put lotion on him and then they'd curl up in his rocking chair where she would charm the ceiling for him and read him storybooks with moving pictures. She could pretend for a moment they were just a normal family, and revel in these precious little moments with her son. He wouldn't be little forever. Would she get to watch him grow up? The Prophecy was damning. Voldemort had to come for them eventually. Until then, she would rock him and gaze lovingly down at him as he relaxed into her arms as she read, sleepy tiny hands occasionally pointing and grazing over the moving animals and people in the books.

When he was teething, he got some potion for the pain and another to ease him to sleep, and nothing short of a body-bind curse got them down his mouth. And when he woke up crying half the night later, she'd call for the Potter elf, Holly, and tell her to get Harry some more potion. Harry woke up screaming a lot even if he wasn't teething; nightmares, Godric know why though. None of the Weasley boys or Neville Longbottom woke up from nightmares as often as he did. Sometimes, especially after an Order meeting or if James was called out by the Auror office for a job, she did it herself. They were living on borrowed time, after all. They would try, Merlin they would try, but they couldn't evade Voldemort forever – and someone from their circle was already giving information about their movements and plans to Voldemort.

Eventually, Voldemort did show up and when he blew the door down, all she could think of to protect Harry. The new anti-apparition wards the death eaters were using had been put up so they couldn't escape – this house was intentionally not set up to Floo so it couldn't be tracked that way, either. It didn't matter if she died so long as he survived. And in a flash of green light, she was gone, and Harry's emerald green eyes turned crimson red with a single black tomoe in each eye. The boy was silent, afraid and horrified and began to cry loudly as the house was blown up by the explosiveness of an unblockable killing curse rebounded.

* * *

Author's Note: Sorry this is so boring and telling not showing. I have no intention of writing out Harry's infancy as it has no affect on the story itself, so I just summarized it. For chapter one I will borrow from parts of another fanfic, revise it, and put it on here. Its my headcanon, to be honest, what I add.

01/08/2019 – Made a few edits. Took out my poor Japanese. Hopefully the google translate and anime watching attempt at Japanese in chapter one is at least excusable.


	2. Chapter 1

Severus appeared just outside of the gate of the Potter's home with a faint pop. The wards had gone off and he'd apparated as quickly as he could, just beyond the apparition wards. It was surreal, looking at the house as it was now. The entire second floor had been blown out, like some muggle bomb had gone off. With a sinking feeling in his stomach, Severus realized it was Harry's nursery. _Lily!_ Severus opened the gate and ran up to the Potter's safehouse with a rush of panic. _No she can't be-_

A sinking feeling in his gut so strong it was nauseating filled him when he didn't feel the familiar pulse of the fidelus wards permitting him entry into the home. _Oh no._ The house was deafeningly silent. It was quite foreboding, walking into the front foyer of a house that was once so filled with life – a happy baby, doting parents, laughing marauders, and himself in some dark corner pretending he was more aggravated to be there than he actually was. But there was none of that now. The entire house was dark, as if the electricity had gone out, but it was a magical home so that wasn't possible _._ _Normal magic only stops working if its casters are dead._

 _Lily. The children. They can't be dead._ _Anyone but Lily, please!_ His heart heavy, unshed tears springing to his eyes, he ran straight for the second floor. Fearful for the lives of Lily and her son and his unborn goddaughter, he broke out into a run, darting past James' body and darting up the stairs, strewn with bits of wall and parts of picture frames, and straight into Harry's nursery. The moment he walked in, he saw it. Just in the doorway was another body, one he never expected to see – Lord Voldemort. The black-haired, brown-eyed, pale-skinned dark lord who had made his very name a curse, who killed countless magicals and mundanes for the past decade, was dead, crumbled to the floor. His wand, 13 ½ inch yew wood with a phoenix feather core, lay discarded on the ground.

A baby started to cry, and for a moment he could hardly believe it. _Harry?_ He looked up to the boy's crib, and the boy was standing up, clutching the rail and a red Gryffindor lion blanket with one grubby hand and reaching out to him with the other. He was covered in ashes, insulation, and dust, and a few pieces of rubble had fallen into his crib. When he looked at the toddler he could have sworn that the boy's eyes were red with a single black dot in them each, but the next moment they were gone. Faded back to emerald green. "Sev'us!" Tears stained the fifteen month old's reddened face and he was sniffling, about to start crying. "Up! Pisky!" Blood ran down the boy's face and a cut had been carved on the boy's forehead. _A laceration? How? Did something hit him?_ _He can't possibly have been hexed. A hex from the Dark Lord wouldn't leave a mere jagged cut. He glanced around the room._ _It looks as if a spell rebounded. Only a spell reflected back at its caster would cause such damage. But how? The killing curse is unblockable._

It wasn't until he began to approach Harry that he saw it. _Lily._ Tears sprang to his eyes and he fell to his knees beside her. She was collapsed, crumbled to the floor in front of Harry's crib as if she'd simply fallen over and her soul left her, without resistance at all. Surely the baby in her womb, still growing, was dead as well. _I'm so sorry, Lily. I'm so sorry. I failed the both of you. All of you_. He'd been this child's godfather. It had been his way of apologizing to Lily for selling them out - pledging on his very magic to do everything he could to protect Lily, Harry, and the baby. James had resisted and it wasn't until they found out the baby's gender that he finally agreed. _They hadn't even thought of a name yet. They had ideas but no name._ He could have never predicted that Lily would be targeted when he reported the prophecy to the Dark Lord, much less this. Anything but this. He cried even harder, clutching Lily's lifeless body close to him as he realized that he would now be responsible for naming Lily's unborn daughter. _Merlin, this can't be happening. What have I done?_

Harry started crying, upset that his mother wasn't getting up to hold him, upset that Severus was crying and holding his unmoving mother, and upset that he was being ignored. Reluctantly, he put Lily down and went to the boy, picking him up with practiced ease. If it wasn't Harry, it was Draco. "Mummy? Mummy korosa?" the child asked, pointing and looking at him with confused emerald green eyes. Blood was still dribbling from his forehead wound. _He'll need to go to St. Mungos._ He didn't trust himself to reply and keep composure, so he stayed silent. Drawing his wand, and ignoring Harry's murmur of "mos" in anticipation, he waved it, thought, and cried again, and said _expect patronum._ A doe emerged from his wand and Harry giggled a watery giggle. "Deer!" he cried. He knew the name of his mother's patronus.

Severus sent a quick message to Albus and then set Harry down beside Lily. " _Accio_ diaperbag." He said. Harry couldn't stay here, it wasn't safe. If he couldn't protect Lily and her baby, he had to at least protect Harry. It felt surreal, numb really, packing up a bag for Harry. As if the whole thing was a bad dream and he'd wake up any second and Lily would be alive, arguing with James again over whether to give the baby a Potter girl name or an Evans flower name, or Sirius would bound in, overexcited for Harry and take him out to play on his racing broom.

Harry was sitting by his mother's body and stroking her beautiful, flowing red locks. "Mummy?" Even in death, dressed in just a red maternity nightgown, she was beautiful. He was muttering spell names that Severus didn't recognize. "Heiwa koros?" Harry always loved to play with her hair. Severus packed quickly. Quidditch pajamas, Magical creatures pajamas, a formal outfit, two sensible outfits, a bag of diapers, and everything else he'd ever known Lily to pack for Harry went right in the bag.

"Harry, come here." He said, grabbing Harry's red peacoat and gold hat and gloves.

Harry hesitated before he walked over. His bare feet padding on hardwood seeming loud in the surreal, foreboding silence. "Go bye-bye?" He nodded. "Si-rus? Remus?"

He shook his head and helped the boy into his winter robes. "No, Molly and Arthur."

"Bye-bye Mowwy." The toddler echoed as he picked him up and shouldered the boy's bottomless, weightless diaper bag and walked downstairs. He was content with all of this, to Severus' surprise. Weren't babies supposed to cry a lot more than this? Then, they reached the stairs and Harry turned back to look at his nursery and gesture desperately. "Mummy!" He cried, tears springing to his emerald eyes and his voice shaking. "Mummy s'inda?" For a moment, he thought the boy's eyes turned red again and then back to green.

He swallowed the lump in his throat and dared not look in the child's emerald green eyes. _Lily's eyes._ He couldn't understand what the child was saying. No one could, he did this all the time. "I'm sorry, Harry." He swallowed again and blinked back tears. He wanted his mother, whatever it was he was saying. How was he supposed to explain to a baby that his mother was dead? "Mummy…mummy go night-night." Severus didn't give Harry a chance to reply and with a small, faint pop he disapparated to The Burrow.

SCENE CHANGE

Within the hour, everyone in the main circle who wasn't an auror had gathered at The Burrow. Albus Dumbledore, Minerva McGonagall, Rubeus Hagrid, Remus Lupin, Augusta Longbottom. Their numbers were few after a decade at war. Almost the entire Bones family was murdered as well as Benjy Fenwick, Marlene McKinnon and her family. Frank and Alice Longbottom would be spending the rest of their lives in St. Mungos. Molly Weasley had lost her brothers Fabian and Gideon Prewett. No one in this room, gathered in the living room and kitchen area around Minerva, was a stranger to loss and war. It was bittersweet, because at least Harry was alive, clutched tightly in Minerva's arms on the ratty old couch, clinging to her and looking around, quiet and uncertain. The foreign runes on his forehead had faded. His diaper bag sat, mostly forgotten, between her and Molly, who was nursing two and a half month old Ginerva at her breast. The other children were all upstairs, sound asleep and blissfully unaware of the happenings downstairs. Owls had been sent off alerting friends, family, and acquaintances all over.

Hagrid was at the table drinking, crying and getting pissed. He'd been like that since he came with Albus earlier. Augusta Longbottom was sat a respectable distance away, barely presentable, watching impatiently. She had to leave her newly orphaned grandson for this, something she could read just as well in a letter. There was not a dry eye in the room.

Remus hasn't spoken since he got here, and he hasn't taken his eyes off either Harry or Dumbledore the whole time. He knew everyone thought he was the spy, until an hour ago. "Albus, has there been any word on Sirius and Peter?" They were both inexplicably missing.

"I'm afraid not." Albus replied. Both of their letters came back without a reply and undelivered, respectively. "All the aurors are out looking for them right this very moment." Twinkling eyes fell on Harry. "At last, the war is over, even if just for now."

The very idea was still so surreal. Like a dream. Even Albus couldn't explain it. The whole second floor looked like a powerful bombarda or reducto rebounded, yet both Tom and the Potters appeared to have died peacefully by way of the killing curse, and little Harry survived with just a cut on his forehead.

Augusta eyed Albus with a critical eye. "How can you say such a thing? Are you absolutely sure that He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named survived?" Albus nodded but she didn't let him reply, speaking over whatever it was he was starting to say. "Snape found the body, Albus! His followers are going to jail and their leader is dead. It's over, Albus. My son and his wife can come out of hiding, now. My grandson can finally see his parents again." She was understandably exasperated. "If you've any proof, say it now! If all this is, is another death notification, then I'm going home to my grandson!"

"Now, Augusta, I know you're upset. You have every right to be." Albus gave her a placating look. "The most obvious sign is the DADA position. It is still cursed - I had the elves check on it as soon as I got the news. Furthermore, the dark marks of the followers have not faded. And finally, we have known for quite some time that Tom has been boasting about finding immortality. I can assure you, this is not just a scare tactic – Tom has been interested in immortality since his school days." A warning, cautionary look was sent around the room. "Tom is not dead. He is merely resting, waiting and biding his time until his followers find him. That is why we must turn our focus, for now, to catching and imprisoning Tom's followers." A soft, twinkling, gaze that was almost grandfatherly turned to Harry. "Harry is the child of prophecy – we must do everything we can to protect him."

Minerva turned her eyes away from the child, now half-asleep laying on her chest, arms wrapped around her neck, head nestled on her shoulder. "Are you sure that the prophecy hasn't already been fulfilled? You-Know-Who is disembodied, is he not? Hasn't Harry already done his part?"

Albus frowned. "That I do not know, my dear. I can't tell you what happened that night, but whatever it was, whatever Harry did, he is a very special child. I am certain that he will be very important when he grows up."

Silence filled the room, save the occasional sniffle or watery hiccup, and the suckling noises of baby Ginerva. "Albus…" Molly said, tentatively, still looking down at Ginny, still crying. "If they can't find Sirius…I would like to raise Harry." Her voice was a barely discernable whisper, as if she was afraid to wake Harry beside her. "He can play with Ron and the boys and Ginny. He'll be loved here. Me and Arthur, we'll raise him as our own."

Albus shook his head in the negative. "I'm sorry, Molly. Harry needs to be as safe as he can be. Every single one of Tom's death eaters will be looking for him." Albus held up a hand, silencing her before she could speak up. "I have an idea. But first, I need to return to Hogwarts and verify a few things. I also need to check on the status of the aurors' search." He drew his wand. "This house is sufficient for now, being unplottable, but Tom has gotten around unplottable before." They would not have had to resort to the fidelus charm otherwise. "Keep Harry safe while I'm gone. Severus was thoughtful enough to bring Harry's things for him, everything he needs should be in there. I will return by nightfall. Severus, if you would accompany me?" Severus walked over and put a hand on his headmaster's shoulder, and with a pop, he was gone.

SCENE CHANGE

They appeared in Albus' office. It was the only room on Hogwarts Grounds you could apparate into and only the headmaster could apparate and disapparate to and from it, and only willingly. Ancient magic from the founders time.

Albus did not waste any time and began searching through the bookshelves against the wall, looking for a particular book. "Severus, tell me…what happened?" Aside from the obvious, of course.

"I failed her. I made a vow on my magic, I did everything I could, and I still failed her." Severus refused to look at Albus, and tears fell silently once more. He was a broken twenty-one-year old man. "I would have sooner let the Dark Lord kill me than let it come to this, if I had known." He and James had even made a truce, granted it was at wandpoint courtesy of Lily, for the sake of Harry and their unborn daughter.

Albus put up a hand, placating. "I know, Severus. I have never doubted your loyalty to Lily." He pulled books from shelves, glancing at them and flipping through a few pages before putting them back on the bookshelf. "You were the first one to get there. Is there anything you can tell me?"

Severus was silent for a moment. "Lily was always a genius, Albus." Indeed, she was always working on one project or another, endlessly fascinated by magic and curious to push its perceived limits. "I don't know what she did, but I doubt that the cut on his forehead is just from flying rubble. From looking at the damage, I would say that somehow, something Lily did protected Harry and made the killing curse rebound on himself." It was the only explanation. Only the killing curse would have killed the Dark Lord, and the Dark Lord would not have hesitated to kill his target. He wasn't one to toy with targets, he only tortured his followers. "I had an associate of mine gather up any ancient tomes they could find that might be useful to protect the house and the children. Whatever she found in them she must have used, because in all my years reading about the Dark Arts and serving the Dark Lord I have never seen magic work like that."

Albus gave a non-committal hum. "I will have to tell the aurors to bring me all the books from the house that are still intact, then. Maybe we can figure out what it is she may have done to protect Harry." A few more minutes, and a few more books later, Albus finally found it. "Ah-ha! Here it is." He pulled a book on warding off the highest shelf, covered in dust it had sat unread for so long. Severus gave him a questioning look. "This, my boy, is a very obscure book about warding. It has a blood ward in it that I would like to use for Harry, after I get the Ministry's approval."

This perplexed Severus. Only wards in a muggle neighborhood required Ministry approval. That's when it hit him. _Wait he said 'blood wards' …!_ "Albus, you can't be serious! Petunia hates the entire magical world, and Harry will not be an exception just because he is her nephew." If looks could kill, Albus would be dying. "Don't underestimate the power of hatred, Albus."

Albus looked up from his reading, his expression grave, sorrowful. "Then I will tell you not to underestimate the power of grief." Severus paused. "When I lost my little sister Ariana, I couldn't forgive myself. For years I resented her, having to take care of her because she was helpless and there was no one else. My little brother Aberforth was still in school, after all. I could have been out exploring the world, learning new things, and making my mark on the world, but she held me back." He sighed, and for the first time, Severus thought he looked world-weary.

"My own selfishness and greed cost my sister her life, Severus. I would give anything to go back to our childhood home and have the burden of taking care of her all over again. Her death changed my perspective of her completely. I am confident that Petunia Dursley will see a new perspective, as well. She will love Harry and raise him as her own." Severus was silent. He wasn't sure which to believe, Albus' grief or his hatred of his father.

TIME AND SCENE CHANGE

Night had fallen again on The Burrow, and Molly had just gotten fussy Harry to sleep with Ron and was coming down the stairs when Albus popped back in, without Severus or Minerva. "Any news, Albus?" she said, rushing over. Her husband stood from his favorite armchair and rushed over to her side. Augusta was long gone and so was everyone else. Only Remus had remained.

Albus motioned to the kitchen table. "Please, sit down everyone. There are a few things that I need to tell you all." Wary and cautious, everyone made their way to the table and sat down with Albus. "First, the good news. I have a plan to protect Harry until all of the death eaters are imprisoned. It is not ideal, but it is the best course of action open to us right now." He paused, looking each of them in the eye. "I am going to give Harry to the Dursleys. You see, his mother had a sister, a muggle named Petunia Evans. She is married now and has a husband and young son Harry's age. I have received permission from the Ministry's Child Welfare Department and had the paperwork written up already to set up blood wards around Harry's house. They will be set up to prevent all magical creatures and humans alike with a dark mark from coming on the family's property. I will have Hagrid fly Harry there himself, to allow me time to apparate there and set up the wards." He looked around the table again. "Is that clear? Any questions?"

Arthur looked confused. "Fly? Do you want him to take my flying car? Albus, I think he's too big to drive it."

Albus chuckled. "No, Arthur. Aurors recovered Sirius' motorbike and I am temporarily lending it to Hagrid. When all of this is resolved, it will go in the Black family vault." Only Albus, the Former Savior of the Wizarding World and Defeater of Lord Grindewald, could convince the Ministry aurors to temporarily lend him their evidence before the case was resolved in court.

"Now, for the bad news." Albus face fell and his expression was once again sorrowful and world-weary. For a moment he looked every bit the 100 year old wizard that he was. "I am sorry to report that the aurors have found Sirius and Peter. It appears that Sirius was the spy in our midst. According to half a dozen witnesses, Sirius cornered Peter and killed him and a dozen muggles with a single spell. Sirius was arrested not far from the scene and is currently sitting in a cell in the Ministry dungeons awaiting a trial by the full Wizengamot. As for Peter…all they could find of him to keep for burial was his right index finger."

Silence. Deafening, foreboding silence. They are all surprised. They thought that because of how his family reacted to his Gryffindor sorting, kicking him out but not disowning him, that he would be loyal to them to the end. The Potters had taken him in, even. He had been the most vocally against Lupin, labelling him as the spy. He was the one they least suspected. And now, this?

"Are you sure, Albus?" Molly asked. Her tone was just exhausted, emotionally depleted. "There's no mistaking any of this? You performed the spell - Sirius was definitely their secret keeper? Is there any chance that all of this is just a mistake?" No one wanted to believe they were betrayed by one of their own, by one of the inner circle. Albus shook his head, and Molly started shaking and began cursing aloud at Sirius, calling him every foul name she could think of. "Those Blacks are all the same! Dark wizards, they all are. I hope he rots in Azkaban for this!" Arthur pulled his wife to him, putting an arm around her and trying to console her. "He had us all fooled. What did we miss, Albus?" Molly was crying and yelling now, gesticulating wildly. Arthur got up and led her away from the table and back to their room, talking quietly to her the whole walk back.

Albus let them go and turned his attention to Remus Lupin. Remus was dumbstruck, still, and crying silently. "Remus, I owe you an apology. We all owe you an apology." Remus turned cautious green eyes to Albus. He still wasn't over everyone labelling him as the spy. "Out of all of us, you and Harry are suffering the most, but at least he will not remember this." He had lost everyone he was closest to in a single night, all save their son. His two childhood friends, his childhood friend's wife, and his ex-boyfriend. "You are not alone, Remus. You are welcome here. No one thinks ill of you anymore, and if anyone says anything then they will have to answer to me. I will not tolerate divisive comments in our temporary moment of peace." Too many people had sacrificed themselves and laid down their lives for them to be able to sit here like this, alive and well and safe from Voldemort.

Remus nodded stiffly. "Thank you, Albus. I appreciate it, I really do." He looked at him, trying to reassure him of his sincerity. "You are the only person who's said anything so far. I just...I just need to be alone for a while." Remus stood and walked to the fireplace, taking a handful of floo powder. "If you or Harry need anything, just fire call me or send a patronus." Albus nodded, watching sadly as Remus called out the name of his house and disappeared in a roar of green flames.

A while later, Albus was cradling Harry in his arms outside. The toddler was clutching at his robes, nervously, and although his eyes were droopy with exhaustion he was too nervous to lay his head down. He was looking all around the vast field and forest that surrounded The Burrow.

Molly and Arthur were still in their rooms, Ginerva was nursing again, and the rest of the children were all asleep. The boy was still wrapped in his red Gryffindor blanket, covered with golden lions charmed to roar silently and make various animations. One was cleaning its paw, another was roaring at another lion that was growling, and two more were racing each other across the blanket's red surface. "Lily was always best at charms." Molly had dressed him in his quidditch pajamas tonight. The quaffle and bludger were stationary, but a golden snitch flitted around the surface of the long sleeve, baby blue shirt.

An engine sounded in the distance, in the air, and when Harry heard it his face lit up. "Si-rus!" the boy was too tired to wriggle around and try to get free, but he did wrestle an arm free from the blanket's confines to point up at the flying motorbike descending down upon the driveway. Albus gave the boy a sad smile. In the darkness, the toddler couldn't tell who it was. He would be disappointed.

Hagrid walked up to Albus, his face still swollen and red from crying all day. At least, it appeared he'd taken a sober up potion. "Harry!" the half-giant beamed at Harry, giving the boy the best, most enthusiastic smile he could muster. Hagrid was a stranger, but this didn't bother Harry. "Hi."

Hagrid reached out and took Harry, getting him settled into the wrap carrier that Albus handed him a moment later. "This is Molly's, Hagrid, so take good care of it." Hagrid nodded hurriedly. Molly could be quite intimidating when angered. Albus walked them over to the motorbike. He tapped a circular monitor on the motorbike and said, "Point me, Number 4 Privet Drive, Surrey, England." The monitor lit up and a green arrow appeared. "There, that will show you to way. When you get close, it will turn red. I will be waiting there. Look for me where the street lamps have all gone dark." Albus instructed, holding up his deluminator and gesturing with it.

Hagrid nodded. "Yessir. I'll get him there safe and sound for yeh."

Albus smiled. "I can always count on you, Hagrid. Remember, fly high and stay above the cloud cover. No one can see you. Now, off you go." He waved at Harry. "Bye, Harry." It might be another year or two before he saw the child, maybe even ten.

Harry was left on the doorstep of his new home quickly and quietly, so as not to wake him, and after a few heartfelt goodbyes, a letter was slipped between the folds of the blanket, his escorts popped away.

Even if he had the mind of a dead fifteen year old ninja, in body he was still a newly orphaned, traumatized civilian toddler. Without the comfort of his mother's warming charm on the baby blanket to protect him from the chilly, 40-degree November night breeze, he woke up much earlier than planned. Certainly, neither Hagrid nor Minerva nor Albus had ever had children of their own if they had expected the toddler to sleep soundly through the night. Molly may have given him a toddler's sleeping draught, courtesy of Snape, but those were only meant to put infants to sleep while they were teething, not to keep them asleep all night. Such a potion would be dangerous to administer to a baby.

The short fifteen-month-old got up, half awake and confused when he realized he wasn't at home in his crib or with the big warm man anymore. "Sev'us? Mowwy?" He didn't see Severus or Molly anymore either. He started sniffling and tears sprang to his eyes as he continued to call out for his family. It seemed that the toddler's body just automatically started crying and sniffling whenever anything was wrong. A good survival mechanism, for sure, even if a little embarrassing. "Daddy?" He wrestled himself out of the blanket and sat up, picking up his blanket and clutching it to his chest in fear. He heard something and looked down, seeing a letter. It fell. "Uh-oh! I get it." He picked it up and looked around. "Si'rus! Remus!"

Then, he noticed the doorbell. He knew what a doorbell was. "Ding-dong!" He exclaimed, pushing it with a small, grubby, gold-gloved finger and giggling, despite his tears, when he heard the sound echo through the house interior. He pressed it again and again and again, giggling happily, until the door was wrenched open angrily. "What do you want?!" He gasped and backed up at the loud angry man that appeared in the doorway, falling over the stoop in the process and landing hard on his bottom. He started bawling, all over again.

The curses died on Vernon's lips when he saw the toddler. He turned on the porch light and took notice of the diaper bag near the boy, wondering if he'd been abandoned. He looked inside the house and called for his wife. "Pet! You'd better come look at this!" He knelt down to the black-haired, emerald eyed boy, an act made awkward by his weight. He didn't recognize the child.

He beckoned to him. "Come here, little tyke." The boy hesitated but walked up to him. "Mummy s'inda." At this point, the man's wife appeared in the doorway. "Vernon, what is it?" Then she saw the child. "Vernon, get the boy inside! He'll get sick out there. Is it one of the neighbors' section boys? Why's he got a letter and a diaper bag?" Vernon stumbled over his answer. "I dunno, let me look." The man picked up the diaper bag and ushered the boy inside, closing the door behind them. "Can I have the letter?" the boy didn't reply, but he recognized the gesture and handed it to him. As he opened it, his wife knelt down motioned the boy forward for a better look at him. She gasped when she saw his eyes. "You can't be…What's your name, dear?" The boy answered her right away without a hint of shyness nor a moment of hesitation. "Harry." Petunia forced herself to reply. "I'm your Aunt Petunia." Harry stared at her with wide, intelligent green eyes. "Aun' Tuny?"

Beside her, Vernon growled at the letter. "Its those damn freaks again!" he shoved the letter in her hands. "I don't care what they want, we're not keeping him!" he exclaimed, loudly and firmly, as if the sniffling toddler was nothing more than a stray pup his son dragged in.

Petunia scanned the letter, becoming increasingly distraught with each line she read. "They killed her, Vernon. They killed Lily." Tears sprang to her eyes, and if she hadn't already been on her knees to talk to Harry she'd have fallen right where she was. Grief and anger overcame her all at once. Tears streaming down her face, she threw the letter aside angrily and pulled Harry in for a hug. "Harry. Oh, Harry!" Vernon shuffled awkwardly beside them, but he had enough sense to not ask. Didn't she hate Lily? "I should have made up with her years ago. She was all I had left. And Dudley has no one now. All his classmates will have grandparents and aunts and uncles and he'll have no one." She was distraught.

Vernon started to speak up, but she cut him off, releasing Harry to stand and properly berate her husband. "Your sister hardly counts, Vernon! She's a drunk just like your father." Vernon backed away from them, looking cowed, and retreated to the living room to put the diaper bag on the coffee table. Harry followed him and climbed up on the couch and laid down. "Christ, Vernon what am I supposed to do. You can't ask me to send him away. He's all I have of Lily, and after everything that's happened, I can't just leave him to the wolves."

"B-but Pet, your parents! Your grandparents!" Vernon sputtered. "That madman killed them all looking for that freak!" He pointed at Harry, loudly, his gesture more confused and surprised than angry. "I won't allow it! I'm not putting you and our son at risk for a freak boy that you've hated up until now!" Vernon only ever grew a backbone when it came to her and Dudley.

"He's dead, Vernon! The madman is dead. He is my nephew, I will be the one to decide if he stays or goes!" Petunia exclaimed. Vernon was all talk and no bite and they both knew it. "They are searching for his followers and they will all go to prison. We are safe, Vernon. We're safe. Harry's safe." Her voice was calm now, even pleading. "He won't be some freak like Lily or that unemployed lowlife that she married. He's going to be a normal, responsible, upstanding boy just like Dudley will be."

Vernon wondered for a moment if she was being serious or if this was just as much to convince herself as it was him. "You're certain, Pet? He'll do no magic whatsoever?"

His wife nodded. "Yes, Vernon. Lily could always control her magic. If we raise the boy like it doesn't exist, and if we're strict with him, and if we don't let him go to _that school_ then I'm sure we can do it. He'll be just a normal boy." Her parents had showered Lily with attention and praise and never once punished her for anything after she started going to Hogwarts. Not when she gave her a chocolate frog as a brithday gift and laughed when she screamed when it jumped on her and left a bit of magical chocolate stuck in her hair. Or when she stole the conversation at the dinner table and talked over her all about her time at school. Or any other time.

"Fine, Pet. The freak stays." Vernon growled. "But you will go through me for every pence you spend on him! We're strapped enough saving for Dudley to go to my private school." Petunia nodded. Perfectly reasonable, that was. "He can sleep on the couch tonight, we'll figure something out in the morning."

Vernon made to leave the room, presumably for the spare blankets in the hall cupboard, but she grabbed his arm and stopped him. "How can you say that, dear? He could walk outside into the street and get lost. The neighbors, even the police, would be all over us! Nevermind the headmaster!" Vernon paused, and she could tell from the look on his face that such a possibility hadn't crossed his mind. "He can sleep in Dudley's playroom tonight on the pullout bed." Vernon pulled his arm away from her and shrugged. "Whatever you want, Pet. He's your problem, not mine."

Petunia sighed, exasperated with him, and turned on her heel back to Harry as her husband ambled down the hall and back to their bedroom. "Come here, Harry," she said, scooping the boy up and that red blanket he'd arrived in, draping it over and around him so it was secure and he was warm. She scowled when she noticed the lions moving around on it. _That will have to go. We cannot have such nonsense around Dudley._ He stirred and lifted his head for a moment before laying it back down on her shoulder. She carried him into the kitchen and grabbed a sippy cup for him from the cabinets, filling it with water from the tap. "Here, Harry. Its time to go night-night." _I hope he knows what to do with it._

The boy grabbed it and sipped at it without any sign of confusion. "Nigh-nigh?" _Maybe she used normal things with him._ "Yes, Harry, it's way past night-night time." Harry seemed to relax at the familiarity. Tears sprang to her eyes as she watched him drink his water. _I always knew she would be such a good mother._

She carried him into Dudley's play room and did her best to ignore the feelings of deep sorrow that carrying Harry into the room brought on. She shouldn't be carrying Harry in here. It was still painted pink with wooden letters hung on the wall spelling out the name Rose Marie. Rose wallpaper border hung at on the ceiling's border all around the room. She had repurposed the furniture for Dudley, and had donated most of the clothes she'd been gifted, and set it up with their old living room couch and an off-white plastic toy box from the store as Dudley's playroom but these had remained. She couldn't take this down yet.

Blinking back tears, she shut the door behind them and set him down on the floor so she could set up the pull-out bed for him. She would never have put Dudley on the couch pull-out bed, it was too high up to be safe, but it would have to work for now. They kept Dudley's old Noah's Ark infant bedding in a basket by the couch, Harry could use that. They had just updated his bed to a toddler bed with a football (American soccer) theme, necessitated because Dudley had got his chubby little leg stuck between the rails of his crib a few weeks prior.

That first night was long for all of them. Harry woke up at the crack of dawn screaming and crying for his mummy, which woke up Dudley too. It was early, well before Dudley usually woke up. Dudley had always been a late sleeper just like his mother. It was a Friday morning so Petunia had been sound asleep while her husband quietly got ready for work. Their morning breakfast routine had yet to start. Mother and son usually slept in while father got ready for work and picked himself up breakfast on the way in to work. But Harry would change all of that.

Petunia went in to console Harry, marching into his room, conflicted between feeling both annoyed at being woken up (and that Dudley was woke up) and anguished that the boy was screaming for his mother. He had fallen off the bed and the moment she walked in, he got up and ran over to her. For a moment, she thought his eyes were red with a red dot in each. "Aun' Tuny! Up! 'Pisky!" She had no idea what that last word meant and ignored it in favor of picking him up. Some nonsense spell name, probably. He threw his arms around her head and cried into her shoulder. "Mummy! Daddy!" He was crying, tears streaming down swollen red chubby cheeks and pointing desperately at the door. "Mummy up?" He wanted his mother to wake up and come get him.

"Mummy and daddy went bye-bye." Tears sprang to her eyes all over again. _Lily._ "Mummy…s'inda?" _She couldn't answer him this time. Why was the boy asking for a spell? Was it a spell to wake her up?_

She could hear Dudley walking around and turning over bins of toys in the next room. "Let's meet Dudley, Harry." She put him down and took him by the hand, still clutching that damned blanket in his other hand, and walked him over to Dudley's room. She would have to find a way to take the blanket without him noticing.

She opened Dudley's door and turned found him with his box of trains dumped out all over the floor. "Good morning, Duddikins!" She pulled her best, happiest smile for her son. "Mo-ning mummy!" Dudley hugged his mother and they shared a moment of normalcy before Dudley finally noticed Harry. "Dudley, this is Harry. He'll be living with us from now on." Dudley looked at Harry, uncertain. "Hawwy?" Petunia nodded. "Yes, this is Harry." she turned to Harry. "Harry, this is Dudley." Harry waved. "Hi Duddy." She got the boys dressed, both of them wearing Dudley's clothes. Dudley was big for his age and a big eater so they were big on Harry, but they would have to do. Even the pajamas Lily put on him were freakish. _If all of his clothes are like those pajamas, I'm going to have to put them all in the bin._

She turned on the telly for the boys and put on some cartoons while she got breakfast for them – a dry eggo waffle, a banana, and a single egg scrambled each. Dudley could feed himself in front of the telly on the floor, so she assumed Harry could too. She always knew that Lily would make a good mother, freak or not. Hopefully Harry could use a toddler fork. Did wizards eat with forks? She wasn't sure. They were so backwards.

Dudley ate eagerly, as usual. She had gotten him his favorite eggo waffles, the new flavored ones he liked. Harry didn't eat much, and instead appeared to be more interested in the telly and in what Dudley was playing with. Dudley had a bunch of trains and cars spilled out on the play mat. "P'ease?" Harry asked, picking up two of them. Apparently Lily had taught her son how to play with other children, and the boy possibly had experience playing with other children given what he just did…was he friends with other freaks? Would he pass on their habits to Dudley?

For a long moment Harry just stood there. Any other baby wouldn't have waited for a response like this, any other baby would've started playing with the two toys he'd taken by now. But not Harry, Harry sat down and thrust the toys in Dudley's face and repeated himself. "P'ease? P'ease Duddy?" Dudley finally noticed Harry and what he was doing and reached for the two toy trains he was holding in his tiny, grubby toddler hands. "Mine!" In his haste to take his toy back, Dudley pushed Harry over and then tripped over him and fell half on him half on the floor. Harry threw an arm over his face to shield himself, not losing his grip on either of the toys. Petunia hurried off the armchair and over to the boys. "Dudley, Harry, are you alright?" Harry was mostly unphased, if a bit shaken, slowly, gingerly, putting down the toy trains and just sitting there, watching. He was looking at her now, knelt down at their side. Dudley was starting to cry. He sniffled and turned to her, his face red and scrunched up and his arms reaching out to her imploringly. "M-mu-mummy-!" He wailed.

She pulled her chubby sixteen month old son close to her and held him. "You're fine, Dudley." She consoled him, rubbing his head with its mop of blonde hair, not yet combed, like he always liked. "No hit, Dudley. No hit." She said, her voice firm, stern. She had to make him understand. "Be nice to Harry. You're brothers now." She had always wanted Dudley to have another sibling to play with. Would it have gone this poorly if Rose hadn't passed away? Would Dudley have gotten along with his big sister? "I love you, Dudley." She hoped she was doing this right. She was a first time mother to two boys, now, and she hardly knew what she was doing with Dudley. "Wuve oo mummy." Dudley repeated. Warmth and affection filled her at his words. This was all that mattered.

Harry was staring at them, sniffling and tearing up. "Mummy." He said, his voice quiet, then loud and begging. "Home, mummy!" Once again, she could've sworn his eyes temporarily turned red and then back to green. Petunia started crying too. He didn't understand, he couldn't understand. "Mummy up?" How do you explain to a toddler that their mother is dead?

Petunia put Dudley down and went to Harry, pulling him in close to her for a hug. "No, Harry. Mummy is…Mummy's dead." The boy paused, sniffling and wrapping his arms around her neck and burying his head in her shoulder. After a moment, the black-haired toddler echoed her words. "Ded…deddo?" Another long pause, and she started petting his hair like she did with her son, trying to console him. "Mummy s'inda. Deddo." He repeated himself periodically, now crying hard into her shoulders, and she could've sworn he understood that his mother wasn't coming back.

TIME SKIP

Days became weeks, and weeks became months. Dudley fought with Harry a lot and Harry woke up screaming with red eyes a lot. Sometimes he woke up screaming Mummy, and sometime he woke up calling out more nonsense words she didn't recognize. She tried to drug him but the cold medicine only got him to sleep quicker. It didn't last through the night and Vernon was already angry enough wasting their money giving the boy cold medicine so he'd go to sleep. She both loved and hated Harry; she loved him because he was her nephew, but at the same time he was the reason that her whole family was dead. He was more of a freak than regular freaks – he had people after him from the day he was born and he survived something he wasn't supposed to have survived. And now, he woke up screaming with freakish red eyes, his voice loud enough to wake the house whole house up.

Harry would have slept better if she treated him like her own son, but she didn't. She gave both boys baths in the evening, but it was Dudley that got to have lotion and books and get rocked while all Petunia did for Harry was set up his bed and turn the telly to cartoons set on low volume for him. He would call for her and yell and pound on the door to no avail, and she would come in there, angry, and push or slap him into submission. He would get scared and run to his bed on the couch in the playroom. If it happened again, he got drugged.

When Harry got out of the playroom, downstairs, and into the hall calling for them late in the middle of the night one night, Harry's room arrangements changed. She was frustrated and took it out on her nephew, who was probably hurting more than she was. She yelled at him, speaking angrily about how he had just come in and turned everything upside down. She yanked him by the arm into the kitchen and gave him some cold medicine, hoping that by drugging him again he'd actually sleep. Then, she cleaned out the hall cupboard while Harry stood safely away from her out of reach in the hall corner with that damned baby blanket. If he was going to walk around in the middle of the night and wake them up as well as wake up at the crack of dawn, then he could damn well sleep downstairs. She could lock him in the hall pantry, at least. It already had a lock and a baby lock on it so Dudley couldn't get in it – the plain lock had worked until Dudley figured out how to turn it and get inside, at which point she put a baby doorknob over it and hoped he wouldn't figure that out too.

Petunia tried to take care of Harry, she really did. With things as they were, they were lucky enough to just have Dudley. She had always wanted to be able to give him a sibling to play with. But Harry was just so different. He said the oddest of nonsense words all the time – "Mos!" whenever they entered a dark room, "Pisky?" whenever he got hurt, and he called medicines 'potions' and valiantly refused to take them. "No potion!" It was a battle to get any sort of medicine down the boy's throat. He took the mini-broom she never used for himself and pretended to fly on it. When he first picked it up he'd appeared surprised that it didn't do anything. He'd yelled "Fly!" and went to mount the broom, holding it out and jumping, only to fall and start crying when it didn't hold his weight up. He ran to her asking " Aun' Tuny, 'pisky?". After she put a plaster on his boo-boos he ran back, picked up the broom and brought it to her asking, " Aun' Tuny, 'paro?" She had no idea what nonsense spell he was talking about so she just scolded him for it and waved him away. "No, Harry." Sometimes she wished he wasn't as verbal as he was. Dudley's language development wasn't as far along as Harry's was. He knew more words than her son did even if some of them were freakish in nature. To make matters worse, he carried around a stick he found in the backyard once like it was a wand.

He asked "Wha' dat?" a lot too. So many things he was unfamiliar with. He was mesmerized by the cartoons on tv more than Dudley was, and always jumped when the phone rang like he'd never heard one before in his life. He was such an odd boy. He certainly wasn't one of them no matter how much she tried to treat him like he was.

To make matters worse, Harry was corrupting their son! Dudley started to repeat some of the nonsense words that Harry would say. When Harry pretended to fly on the mini-broom, Dudley soon caught on and started to copy him. She didn't want her son being corrupted by Harry's freakish ways. Her son was going to become a good, upstanding, _normal_ young man! And so would Harry, with any luck. To separate the boys, she took to having Harry follow her around and help her with chores and housecleaning. Even if she had to yell at him or slap him on the hand, she made him help. He was old enough to dust tables and hand her dishes from the dishwasher and hold things for her, at least.

Petunia was ashamed of Harry, embarrassed to have such an odd, freakish child living with them. His mannerisms and a lot of the things he said were from his culture, so she couldn't bring him around other muggles – he would just embarrass them and make them look like freaks. She had to break him of his freakish upbringing, and then maybe she could bring him around other children. When he stopped using the mini-broom as a racing broom, and stopped saying spell names all the time, then he could have play-dates with Dudley.

The only problem was, by the time that happened the boy had begun his terrible twos and was having incidents of accidental magic. There was absolutely no way she could send him to nursery school when he turned 3 with Dudley. She would teach him his letters and numbers and colors herself at home. It was at this point that she began to make up lies to all the neighbors to cover up for their treatment of Harry. It was the only way she could think of to raise Harry to be a normal person without anyone finding out what he was.

From day one, Vernon put Petunia in charge of Harry. Vernon wanted nothing to with him and he insisted that the boy's most unwelcome presence have a minimal impact on his wallet. Dudley came first. Thus, Harry only wore Dudley's hand me downs, Harry only ever slept on Dudley's used mattresses when he got a new one, and Harry ate a very limited diet. She let Dudley eat all he wanted but made sure to limit Harry's meals. He was chronically underweight and he always felt tired, hungry, and lethargic. But nobody suspected a thing because they all believed his aunt's well thought out lies. Everyone just chalked it up to a side effect of his medications or his mental disturbances. Harry was screwed up when he came to them, so they had to work extra-hard to undo his parents' culture and turn the boy into a proper British citizen.

* * *

Author's Note: Please read and review! Let me know what you think. Also, I apologize in advance for my poor Japanese. I only have anime watching and google translate on my side. If someone wants to provide me with the right words I'll gladly edit it, I don't want to offend anyone. I didn't want to translate what he said so as to ideally get across how confused everyone around Harry-Shisui must be by his behavior.

Hopefully no one's too mad that I made Petunia lose her firstborn child. I always wondered why she coincidentally had a child Harry's age and not another child if she was older and married first. Other than plot device of course.

A lot of this is derived from another fanfic I write, called Make Them Hurt, just edited. Its my headcanon, at this point, so I find it hard not to include it. Plus I think its important to not make the Dursleys seems so black and white, so surely bad, as they're portrayed. They're terrible to Harry, of course, but they're still human. And since Petunia knew where they were living and sent a vase that Harry broke, I figure they did in fact talk.

Harry-Shisui is being written this way because it is my attempt at blending the two. He's a mixed soul, not fully Shisui, or else he wouldn't be able to do magic. I wanted to limit him and humanize him instead of portray him as a fifteen year old dead kid in a baby's body. So he has the emotions and capabilities of a toddler Harry with the memories and knowledge of Shisui. Also, I apologize for my shitty Japanese. I used google translate and figured maybe I can get away with it while he's a baby because babies aren't very wordy. It was my attempt at trying to show that he's still learning English. He'd never seen someone die the way Lily did, so he kept asking if she was killed because he genuinely didn't know. And a baby can't properly examine someone to find out either.


	3. Chapter 2 - Lost in Thought

Chapter 2: Lost in Thought

" _I'm counting on you to handle the rest."_ Those were his final words to Itachi that night on the cliff. He had never felt so low, so defeated, so hopeless in his entire life. He had failed everyone. There was no way to stop the clan's coup now. War would engulf the village. And what had possessed him to put the burden of saving everyone on Itachi? He was just twelve years old. What kind of older brother figure was he, pushing the burden of saving their entire clan on him? Maybe it was the poison flowing through his veins, killing him and taking his sense of judgement too. There was no way to tell what sort of power Itachi's mangekyo would have, or if his single remaining eye that Itachi had put in one of his crows would be able to even use the kotoamatsukami. The mangekyo sharingan was rare. He genuinely didn't know if Itachi needed both eyes to use its ability.

It kept him up at night. What happened? Did Itachi, with his genius IQ, figure out a plan to prevent the coup? Or did the clan pull off the attack and pull the village into civil war. Did Sasuke have to take up a kunai and defend himself? Was he even still alive? What happened? He couldn't stand not knowing what happened. He died and left it all to Itachi. But Itachi's genius IQ doesn't make up for his lack of life experience. They were both just kids. He had been just a stupid fourteen-year-old boy, full of youthful naivety and idealism, thinking that if he tried hard enough and lost enough nights of sleep working and investigating and planning that he could save everyone.

Danzo's words echoed through his mind every night when he tried to fall asleep. He couldn't fall asleep without thinking of his clan. His family. Without thinking of the sharingan eye that Danzo had stolen from him and wondering what he intended to do with it. He hated that he died without securing it, even if it couldn't be helped. _"Flipping the ringleader Fugaku at this stage, you're just spitting into the ocean. I've made it through two great wars, and I am telling you, your plan will most certainly fail."_ He remembered that in this moment, Danzo's severity shut his mouth. Any words of protest died on his lips. _"Even if you succeed in controlling Fugaku with visual jutsu, proposing a halt to action at the meeting today, and managing to pull off this stopgap, nothing will change. The radical faction will only think Fugaku's change of heart is because he has become cowardly in his old age. They will quickly pick a new leader, and move to put the plan into action. Listen to me, Shisui. The head can always be replaced."_

Would it really have failed? Looking back, he was reluctant to admit that Danzo was probably right. His methods were questionable, assassinating him like he had to stop his plan to try to save the clan, but Danzo had a lifetime of experience and wisdom that he didn't. Danzo didn't trust anyone, not even his own comrade-in-arms the Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, but he would do whatever it took to protect the village. Even if it meant doing some pretty unsavory things. His heart was in the right place, at least. _Which makes me wonder, what did he do with my sharingan? Is the clan safe? Is there even still a clan?_ Suffice to say, he never got enough sleep. He was used to running on little sleep, but it still didn't make it any easier. Especially in his new reincarnated body. He tried his best, but it still wasn't as well trained as his old one was.

INSERT BREAK LINE HERE

Life at the Number 4 Privet Drive with the Dursley family was blissfully normal, for eight-year-old Shisui Uchiha now Harry Potter. All he had to do was wake up, help out a bit, and go to school. For the first time in his life, he could actually be a child. Granted he still didn't act or think like a kid, and it was for this reason that he didn't have any friends at school or in the neighborhood. But for the first time in his life there were no expectations, no missions, no war to fight in. Being an Uchiha, you had no choice but to be a ninja and live and die defending your village, especially if you were gifted at fighting like he was. But here, as just Harry, he could be whatever he wanted. He had the choice that Itachi still would never get - to decide his own life for himself. But he found himself feeling completely lost and out of his element. This new life felt like a never-ending vacation. _I just want to go back home. I want to see Itachi and Sasuke and Aunt Mikoto and Uncle Fugaku and everyone else. I need to see if the clan is safe. If the village is safe._

He still woke up before dawn to train every morning. He used this body's kekkei genkai – some kind of magical ability – to turn found discarded household objects into tools. He would wake up, put on some shorts and a t-shirt, tie the weapons hostlers he'd made to his right thigh, and walk to the park a few blocks away to train. He missed the familiar weight of the two tools pouches he'd always kept on his back at the waist, one for explosives and smoke bombs and the like and another for simple first aid supplies. He didn't have the resources to readily steal to make them here.

He had set up a small training area in the grove of trees by the children's park and put up seals along the perimeter so no one but himself could go in. They were just basic privacy seals, good for making camp because they prevented intrusion. It didn't stop the enemy from setting up post for an ambush outside the seal's perimeter, but this was just a training field. He was going overboard as it were.

 _Everyone thinks I'm just playing ninja._ He felt like he was, though, when all he could do was throw kunai and shuriken at trees, practice the henge with a broken hand mirror he'd fixed, and relearn how to walk up trees. It would be a long time before he could do the body flicker again. It was what had made him famous all over the world, and got him flee on sight warnings in all the Five Great Shinobi Nations…and now he couldn't do it anymore.

He wasn't sure if he should be frustrated at that or not. _I'm a civilian now, aren't I? Civilians don't need to learn how to kill people before they can even write in sentences._ It was true. He had a body count higher than he was old before he could properly write in kanji. For the longest time, all he could write in kanji was his own name. He continued to write in hiragana like a preschooler until he became a jounin at 11 and could afford to get someone to tutor him. His math skills had been equally atrocious, but he let it be because you don't need to know your multiplication tables to be able to slaughter enemy ninja or write up mission reports. But being this weak, he felt like he was losing apart of himself even if he knew, logically, he had no need in this new, peaceful life to be strong like he had in his old one. _But what am I, if I'm not even a ninja? All our lives, me and Itachi wanted nothing more than for the village to be at peace. But it feels so strange. I don't know what to do with myself anymore._

All he got done today was target practice and some laps. Nothing compared to his training routine at this age in his past life – he would run for hours, trying to build up stamina for missions. He walked into the Dursley house and shut the door. "I'm home!" It made him smile to be able to say that to a house full of people, even if they didn't like him.

"Harry, hurry up and get in here!" came his Aunt Petunia's shrill cry from the kitchen, muffled only a bit by the door.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." He went in and helped her for a bit with the cooking and setting the table. It was a lot like being at his Aunt Mikoto's, really. He missed those days. She had raised him for the most part before he graduated the Academy at age 5 cause his parents were off fighting in the war. Even after he graduated and got a tiny apartment of his own on a genin's pay, she still invited him over often. He was like her third son, in a way.

Aunt Petunia had none of his Aunt Mikoto's affection, though. No warm smile or greeting or asking about him as he walked in. Just orders barked in his direction. "Watch the bacon for me. And try not to burn it!"

He did ask asked happily, though, with a partially genuine smile on his face, because even a family that didn't like him beat having no family at all. "I can't believe you went out to the park to play ninja this morning when I specifically told you not to. It's your first day of school, and I will not have Dudley be late because of you." And he really didn't want a spare moment to think about how he might not have a family back in Konohagakure anymore.

"I'm sorry, Aunt Petunia." He knew she was only putting up such a fuss and cooking a full breakfast because it was their first day of school. "Thank you for cooking breakfast." Any other school day, and it would have been cereal for him and simple oven food for Dudley. He ignored the blatant display of favoritism because free food and rent was free food and rent, even if his bedroom was a cupboard under the stairs formerly used for storing cleaning supplies and the vacuum. The last time he'd had this, he was still a five year old Academy kid in his previous life.


	4. Chapter 3 - The Letter

Chapter 3: The Letter

It was a normal enough summer day. They were all standing in the living room, where his Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon were both fawning over Dudley in his brand new Smeltings Uniform. His Aunt wanted to take a picture of him all dressed up. He was seated awkwardly out of the camera's view watching. _I guess going off to secondary school is just as big as graduating from the Academy._

His aunt had finally found the perfect spot and the perfect pose for the photo. "Oh, smile!" With a flash, the photo was taken. She would take it to the store to get it developed, printed, and framed for the house and to send out to friends and family. "Just look at him, I can't believe it! In just two months he'll be off to Smeltings." His Aunt was beaming at Dudley with pride and joy. _Like when I graduated from the Academy as the youngest Uchiha ever. Aunt Mikoto was so happy, so proud._ She had insisted on walking him to his deployment with his unit and taking a photo of himself and the two others who'd graudated with him, the obnoxious nine year old Kaito Uzumaki and the short, shy nine year old girl from the orphanage, Aiko.

Vernon spoke up gruffly. "Caveat smeltonia. The proudest moment of my life!" That Dudley was going to his old school. They'd saved every pence they could, often at his expense, to make this moment possible.

"You look so handsome and all grown up." Aunt Petunia gushed. She couldn't wait to show the family.

It was a rather gaudy looking uniform, with the maroon tailcoat, orange knickerbockers, and the cane that Dudley had taken to calling a Smelting's stick and using it to hit everyone with. He wondered how long it would take Uncle Vernon to get fed up at being poked and prodded and scold his son. "I'm glad I won't have to wear that." He said, laughing out loud at Dudley's ridiculous uniform from his spot in the back, halfway between his relatives and his cupboard door just in case. "Stonewall's is normal. That thing just looks awful." _Like something the Iwa nin would think up with their own awful looking uniforms._

"Harry!" His Aunt exclaimed, giving him a warning look. "Don't antagonize him. He's going to Smeltings, its one of the best private business secondary schools around. _You_ are going to Stonewall with all the other riffraff, where you belong." He shot his Aunt a stony look. _So what if my father in this life was unemployed. I'm still an Uchiha!_ Even Shisui had some Uchiha clan pride. He knew they were lying to him about how he died, though. _Its an odd thing to lie about. I wonder what really happened._

Dudley got a cross look on his face and took a moment to come up with a retort. He wasn't sure why it required thought, the blonde wouldn't get scolded for anything he said at his expense. "You know, I heard they stuff people's heads down the toilet the first day at Stonewall." He told Shisui. "Want to come upstairs and practice?"

Dudley stepped closer to him and tried to look intimidating, clutching the black uniform cane in an angry fist. "Come here, Potter!"

He channeled chakra to his feet and nimbly dodged the cane. "Try harder next time, kiddo." Dudley had expected this, though, and didn't put so much behind it that he stumbled. "Good try, you're learning!" He was teasing him, but there was genuine praise behind the mocking tone in his voice. He used to stumble when they were younger, which gave him a wide opening to strike the boy as if to kill. If he had wanted to, that is. _I'm not gonna hit a civilian, though._

"Harry, your Aunt told you to stop it!" Vernon hollered, raising his voice to scold him. The click of the mail slot opening and the flop of envelopes on the doormat interrupted them. "Dudley, go get the mail." Shisui got the feeling Vernon just wanted to separate them for a moment.

"No, make Harry get the mail." Dudley whined.

"Fine." Vernon relented, and turned to bark at him. "Harry, go get the mail."

He nodded and gave a habitual hum of acknowledgement. "Yes, Uncle Vernon." It was boring being an obedient kid all the time, and Dudley gave him so many opportunities. _I wonder what it would've been like if I had a little brother?_ If they hadn't died in the Third War, maybe he would have had a little sibling like his cousin Itachi did in Sasuke.

Three things lay on the interior doormat. A postcard from his Uncle Vernon's older sister his Aunt Marge, a bill in a white envelope, and…a letter to one Harry J. Potter. _Woah._ He picked it up, his heart pounding as he read the address written on it in strange, loopy green ink that sparkled just a bit in the light of the hallway. _The cupboard under the stairs? Who sent this?_ _This isn't something Dudley would do, he's more brute and up front._

He hurriedly stuffed it in his waistband and used his new body's kekkei genkai to hold it there before taking the bill and the postcard to his uncle. "Here, Uncle Vernon. Looks like Aunt Marge wrote us. How is she?"

His Uncle Vernon ignored him and answered his Aunt Petunia instead. "Marge's ill. She ate a funny whelk…"

It was another hour of dull conversation and listening to Dudley talk about the game he was playing on the Gameboy that he'd got for his birthday before he got the opportunity to retreat back to his cupboard to read the letter. Unscarred hands steady with resolve, he opened the odd letter. _It can't be just a prank. No one who knows where I sleep would ever dare talk about it, for the risk of getting Child Protective Services involved. Even Dudley won't, not after what happened in first grade._ He'd barely managed to convince the teacher that he'd only been sent to the cupboard as punishment for antagonizing Dudley after Dudley foolishly mentioned his cupboard in class. Dudley had got his first real scolding from his father that evening after school.

The envelope looked normal enough, but the letter inside felt funny. It wasn't normal printer paper. _Its parchment. Who uses parchment anymore?_

A school crest was boldly emblazoned at the top of the paper, featuring a lion, a snake, a badger, and an eagle. Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry was written below with what was unmistakably not a modern ink pen, but not a Japanese ink brush either. The headmaster's name, Albus Dumbledore, was below the school's name followed by two full lines of titles.

 _What's an Order of Merlin? International Confederation of Wizards? This is definitely not a prank._ Even if Dudley told his best friends about his living arrangements, this isn't something that three ten and eleven-year-old civilian boys would sit down and take the time to come up with. They didn't have a gram of creativity between the three of them.

 _Dear Mr. Potter, We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Please find enclosed a list of all necessary books and equipment. Term begins September 1_ _st_ _. We await your owl by no later than July 31_ _st_ _. Yours Sincerely, Minverva McGonagall, Deputy Headmistress._

Another paper was enclosed within, titled Instructions for Muggleborn or Muggle-Raised Pupils. _What's a muggle?_ He scanned it briefly. The instructions were complex and very detailed, telling him how to board something called the Knight Bus to get to Diagon Alley for his school supply shopping, because the necessary books and equipment could not be obtained anywhere in muggle London and muggle alternatives would not do. A limited amount of funds were available from the school if one could not afford all the school supplies.

 _Huh. So somehow there's other people not related to me that have my magic kekkei genkai? But my relatives don't have it. Why not? If it were the sharingan, then Aunt Petunia and Dudley would have the chance to awaken it. Why doesn't this magic ability work the same way? Does it skip generations?_ He'd heard of kekkei genkai that ran in a family but were unusually hard to find within said family, like the Dead Bone Pulse of the Kaguya clan. _Maybe that's how it works. But if that's so, that doesn't explain why my Aunt and Uncle lied about the circumstances surrounding my parents' deaths. A magical death would explain their fear and avoidance. Or maybe my mom was adopted into the Evans family?_

Then, he remembered that line about owl. _They must use messenger birds like we do in Konoha!_ He got a piece of paper and a pen out of his school bag and wrote up a reply in the best handwriting he could manage.

'To whom it may concern, I would be honored to accept my place at Hogwarts Witchcraft and Wizardry. Sincerely, Harry J. Potter.' He wasn't sure what else to put, so he left it at that. _How did I even get in? I didn't apply. Can kekkei genkai be detected that young, here? Or was I levitating toys at just a year old?_

He rolled up the paper and tied it with a random rubber band from his school bag and used magic to hold it at his waistband again. Then, he changed into his training shirt and shorts and tied his weapons hostlers on before he existed his cupboard and headed straight for the kitchen. "Aunt Petunia, can I go out play?"

His aunt glanced up at him from her work putting premixed cookie batter on a tray for Dudley. _I'll have to have one when I get back._ "Yes. But don't do anything too strange. You already have the neighbors talking about all this ninja nonsense." She waved him away.

He nodded. "Yes, Aunt Petunia. Thanks. I'll be back in time to help with dinner!" Well, he would try to anyways. He didn't know how long it would take it get to Diagon Alley and back, let alone do his school supply shopping.


	5. Chapter 4 - Diagon Alley

Shisui walked out and saw the owl sitting perched on the tree out front, and went over to it. The owl hopped down to lower branch so he could reach it. _Never thought I'd see a messenger owl. They aren't diurnal creatures._ He had expected the owl to have some sort of pouch tied to its body to hold the letter, but all he saw was a miniscule canister attached to its leg. It held out the leg at him and hooted at him, waiting. Gingerly, he held the letter up to the little canister and gasped in surprise when it shrunk to fit and placed itself securely within. _Wow! So this is how wizards send letters?_ It seemed archaic, but if it were a small population of people that wanted to stay separate from everyone else, perhaps it made sense.

The owl cocked its head and looked at his hands, as if searching for something. _It wants food._ He frowned. "I'm sorry, I don't have anything for you." He would have to find a way to get food to keep for the messenger owls. He didn't have any money with which to buy treats or tinned sardines or whatever it was owls ate. With a hoot of indignance, the owl fluttered its wings and flew off to deliver his reply to the school. _How'd it find me anyways? Its never met me before._

Shrugging, he walked up to the curb and held out his dominant arm, his right arm, and with a pop of apparition and the squeal of bad brakes, the Knight Bus appeared before him in all its glory. It was a ghoulishly colored, triple decker monstrosity. He had only seen these in the distance once on a shopping trip with his Aunt Petunia and Dudley. _I never thought I'd actually ride one of these!_

"Welcome to the Knight Bus!" A young man dressed in a mostly black uniform read off a cue card. He looked bored, like he didn't want to be here. "The Knight Bus is emergency transport for the stranded witch or wizard. My name is Stan Stunpike and I will be your conductor for this evening." The man put the card in a pocket and looked at him for the first time since the bus stopped. "Woss your name?"

"Harry." He replied easily. "Harry Potter."

Stunpike gasped and suddenly he was excited. "Harry Potter? THE Harry Potter? You're the Boy Who Lived?" Stunpike held out his hand and shook his vigorously. "Its an honor, Mr. Potter! Say, do you really have a scar on your head shaped like a bolt of lightning?"

He was taken aback and had to scramble for something to say. "Yup, I sure am!" He pulled a cocky grin reminiscent of what he used to give the clan children when they asked him to train them because he was Shisui the Jounin. They all idolized him cause he beat Kakashi-senpai's record for becoming a jounin. "Sorry, I'm kinda in a rush though. I have to be home in time for dinner. Can you take me to the Leaky Cauldron? I'm going to Diagon Alley." He tried his best to speak with confidence and not to stumble over the unfamiliar place names and show how new to this he was. This man knew more about him than he did and that made him uncomfortable.

"Sure, of course, of course. Right away. Trip's on me, how about that?" Stunpike said, "Where's your relatives? Aren't they coming? First year is a big occasion."

He shook his head. "No, sir. They don't have magic so they don't really understand all of this."

Stunpike made a tsk'ing sound. "Muggles, eh? That's a shame." Stunpike replied, walking up to the front to tap on the glass and give the driver the destination. "No one is ever gonna believe this. The Harry Potter, on my bus." He had the impression that Stunpike thought he was talking quietly enough so as not to be heard. He still heard him anyways.

After a hellishly chaotic bus ride, he was deposited in front of the Leaky Cauldron. It looked like any other random, run down, dark and shabby looking pub on the inside. People glanced up when the door opened but no one paid him any mind. Two old women in hooded dresses were talking over glasses of sherry at a small table in the corner. A man was smoking a pipe at another table, all alone. An unusually short, stout man about Sasuke's height wearing a top hat was talking to the tall, balding old bartender whose nametag read Tom. _That's who I'm supposed to ask for._

The few that had looked turned back to their food as he made his way around people and chairs to the bar. _They must know my name but not my face. And they get enough kids coming through this time of year that they should ignore me._ Remembering the directions on the letter, he walked up to the counter. "Excuse me, sir? Could you please let me into Diagon Alley?"

Tom nodded and plastered on a fake smile for him. "I sure can, lad!" he replied, then motioned to the workers in the kitchen area behind him. "Marie, watch the front for me for a moment."

A plain looking brunette woman in her 30's looked up at her name, but Tom didn't give her a chance to properly reply before he was leading him out down a hall to the back of the pub. "First year?"

"Yes, sir." He said, trying to chose his words carefully. "I'm muggle-raised, so its all pretty new to me."

Tom gave a noncommittal noise of response. "That's a real pity. No wonder you came in all alone – your parents can't even see the pub, then." He ignored the heavy feeling he got at those words. _Why in both lives did I have to lose my parents?_ The partial façade was worth it, though, for the information. _So non-magical people can't see magical establishments. That probably includes the school as well. So they hide an entire shopping district behind this pub? How's that even possible? Maybe its time-space ninjutsu?_

Tom brought him to a small lot at the back of the pub and took out a carved wooden stick – a real wand – from his coat pocket. "All's you got to do is tap the right bricks in three times in a row, and the gate to Diagon Alley will open for you. See this trash can? Count up from the trash can three bricks up and two bricks across, and tap it three times just like so…" Tom gave three successive taps on the brick wall with his wand.

The wall gave a shudder and quivered before bricks began to move themselves out of place all on their own to create an arching door. "Welcome to Diagon Alley!" Tom said, gesturing for him to walk through. "Hurry along now, the gate won't stay open for long. I have to get back to work. You do the same thing to get back in from the other side, so remember it – trash can, three up, two across!"

The old man was already walking away when he finished his sentence, leaving Shisui to cautiously walk through the gates on his own. _I can't believe this. This place is as big as a small village!_ _I wish Sasuke and Itachi could see this._ A cobbled street went down and twisted off in three different directions at different points along the road. The road was busy with people milling about going here and there. For the first time in almost eleven years, not a single car was in sight. It was a welcome sight.

A glimmer of sun on metal caught his eye right beside him and made him look, tensing up momentarily even though it just turned out to be a stack of cauldrons. Potage's Cauldron Shop, the sign above the door read. The morning sun had rose just high enough to reflect brightly off the display of cauldrons; Large, personal size, self-stirring, collapsible, copper, brass, pewter, and silver. _I'll need one of those, but first I need to withdraw some money._

A large, white three story building called Gringotts Bank towered over all the others at the end of the road. _I should ask about the financial assistance from the school there._ He knew his aunt and uncle wouldn't be willing to even let him attend much less pay for his books and equipment. _I wonder if they knew all along?_ He always felt like their hated of him went deeper than the fact that they'd been forced to take him in when they didn't want him.

He walked slowly down the street, trying to keep his distance from people but also trying to see the names of all the shops and what they sold. Most had displays of their wares out front, something he hadn't seen in London ever. _I wonder if wizards have some sort of anti-theft spells to protect these displays?_ He thought, running a hand over the supposedly self-stirring cauldron cautiously. He refrained from testing his curiosity and tore himself away from the cauldrons.

Slug and Jiggers Apothecary next door to the cauldron shop had a variety of strange things in the windows – animal parts, it appeared. A stack of parchment was stuck to the window displaying the current prices for on-sale items and in-demand or hard to find items. One rather plump woman was looking at it and shaking her head. "Dragon liver, seventeen sickles an ounce…they must be mad…"

Across from the apothecary, a cacophony of screeching and hooting drew his attention. Eeylops Owl Emporium, the storefront read. A sign in one of the two windows listed the breeds sold – Tawny, Screech, Barn, Brown, Screech, and Snowy – and in smaller font below it, another ad. _Well bred, long distance flyers available. Inquire within. I guess they really only use owls. And they're all awake during the daytime. Maybe they have their own breed?_ He still thought it was weird. Back home in Konohagakure they used hawks and falcons and pigeons. He'd never heard of anyone training an owl to be a messenger bird before.

On and on, the shops went. Madam Malkins' Robes for All Occassions had school, casual, and work robes displaying themselves in the window, as if they were hung on an invisible mannequin. Madam Primpernelle's Beautifying Potions had a window display of various expensive looking bottles of who knows what in them. A large, orange tabby cat with face that looked like it'd been smashed in a bit laid in the window seat inside The Magical Menagerie, napping in the morning sun. Sugarplum's Sweet Shop had a bright and colorful display of sweets he wished he could buy and take to Itachi to try. The Uchiha heir had a sweet tooth that more than made up for his and Sasuke's complete distaste for sweet deserts. Several families with young children sat at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor and the mothers in their hooded dresses and the occasional Victorian or Edwardian era gown talked amongst themselves while their children ran around underfood.

Rosa Lee Teabag's seemed to attract a less rowdy crowd, and here he saw that it was mostly the elderly who wore hooded dresses and tunics with stockings and the like instead of the more elaborate dresses he saw the mothers wearing. It was unusual, to him. He looked at his own outfit – a faded, one-size-too-big grey t-shirt, a pair of kahki trousers rolled up twice and held up by a belt, and a very faded, worn out looking two-sizes-too-big blue flannel that hung down almost to his knees. He'd given up keeping the sleeves rolled up on it and had ended up cutting them and sewing them to fit. It looked terrible even for a muggle environment – here, he not only looked like some bum of the street, but also stood out way too much. _I wish I had some money to buy some wizard clothes._ It made him feel on-edge standing out so much. A ninja that couldn't blend in was a dead ninja.

Eventually, what felt like an eternity later, he arrived at the white stone steps of Gringotts. Large double burnished bronze doors loomed before him. A little oni a head shorter than himself stood beside the double doors. _Goblins, they're called goblins here._ It had a pointed face, long bony clawed fingers, and wore a red and gold uniform. Its nametag read Grinknus.

Grinknus bowed to him. "Welcome to Gringotts." He returned the bow and it got a shocked look on its face, and he got the impression he wasn't supposed to bow back. He walked in and was met with a second set of double doors, this time silver. Engrave upon the doors in large font was a poem that served as a stark warning.

"Enter, stranger, but take heed of what awaits the sin of greed. For those who take, but do not earn, must pay most dearly in their tur. So if you seek beneath our floors a treasure that was never yours, thief, you have been warned. Beware of finding more than treasure there." He gave a thoughtful hum and looked at the pair of goblins on either side of the door. "I acknowledge and accept." The two bowed at him and with a wave of a bony, clawed hand, the doors opened before him. _I wonder if they have traps set to catch thiefs? How complex is magic?_ All he had ever done with magic was levitate things and turn one object into another.

Hundreds of more goblins filled the main hall. Two long counters with high stools lined the left and right side. The goblins at the counters were speaking with clients, taking blood samples, and testing the authenticity of coins and precious stones with eyeglasses and brass scales. Behind the counters were countless many offices. Still more goblins were showing clients in and out of these offices for financial business.

A goblin named Graggit who was, surprisingly, not doing anything called him over. "What do you need?" It was rather gruff and to the point, in contrast to the polite bows he had received from the other goblins.

"Yes sir, Graggit." He kept his voice confident, despite being unnerved by the creatures. He'd never seen anything like them before. Were they dangerous? "I would like to make a withdrawal from the Hogwarts account for school supplies."

Graggit nodded. "It will be done." Graggit grabbed a long, thin piece of carved wood with a bit of pointed metal on the end, surely enchanted because he didn't dip it in a vial of ink and flipped around in some papers before selecting one with the Hogwarts crest on it. "Name?"

"Harry James Potter." He said, enunciating it clearly for the goblin. However, the goblin startled and stopped short of writing his name down on the list.

"Potter? What are you playing at, human? You're descended from a pureblood family, you don't need access to the Hogwarts vault." Graggit was genuinely angry with him.

 _Huh?_ "Pureblood family? I don't understand, sir. I never knew my parents." His heart was racing. He felt eyes staring at him from all over the room. Not all of the goblins, of course, but enough of them had caught wind of the conversation and begun to stare that he was nervous. He hoped his words would explain the situation for him, because somehow complete strangers like that bus attendant Stan Stunpike knew more about him than he himself did. _They can't possibly be talking about the Uchiha._

"I see. They didn't tell you, did they?" the goblin paused, thinking. "One moment." Then, Graggit hopped off the tall chair and walked towards one of the offices. "Griphook!" it yelled, not even bothering to knock on the carved, mahogany wooden door before opening it. "Potter is here. He requires a formal meeting."

He could just barely make out Griphook's reply from within. "Very well. Show him in." Graggit motioned him over and showed him into Gripphook's office before leaving back to its desk with not a single word.

"Pardon the interruption, Griphook, sir." He said, by way of habit more than anything else. He wasn't the Uchiha heir, that was Itachi, but Aunt Mikoto had raised him to be polite. But it was hard to be polite in an unfamiliar society. His emerald green eyes darted around the room, giving it a brief once-over. A solid, sturdy looking mahogany desk with intricately carved, wide legs took up the center of the room. A plaque on it read 'Griphook, Finance Manager' in plain font. Not loopy, curvy, hard to read font. A pair of plain mahogany chairs for the client's side, and a sturdy looking, carved one for the finance manager. A bookshelf full of papers took up the length of the wall behind Griphook and his desk.

"Sit down. First we will perform a blood test to confirm your identity." The goblin ordered, grabbing a small piece of blank parchment, a short dagger and a vial. He tensed up at the sight of the knife. "Show me the index finger on your dominant hand."

He shook his head. "I can do it." Maybe he was being paranoid, but he didn't trust what could easily be a cursed or poisoned blade. Even if this was supposed to be his finance manager. He bit the finger Griphook had asked for and held it over the vial, just as he would've done back in Konoha to summon his crows, and allowed a few drops of blood to fall into the small, sake-cup sized vial.

A few moments later, a puff of green and silver mist shot out from the vial. "You have been confirmed. However, there is more…" Griphook turned his attention to the small piece of paper and gave an appreciative noise, then a gasp of shock and surprise. "Curious. You show up as being three people." Not trusting the goblin, he kept his internally shocked and panicked feelings to himself.

Griphook looked up at him. "Potter, were you aware that you are a reincarnation of one Shisui Uchiha?"

He gave a steely nod. "Yes. My name is Shisui Uchiha."

Griphook smiled, and it came off as predatory, even though he thought it was intended to express excitement. "Interesting. A very strong reincarnation. Must have been a sudden, unexpected, grizzly death, Uchiha?"

He didn't answer, Griphook moved on. "This is the curious part. The test shows that you are also a very, very small part one Tom Marvolo Riddle, Jr." By his tone and expression, he got the impression that Griphook had no idea who this Tom person was. "I don't know how it happened. Your parents are James Fleamont Potter and Lily Evans Potter." The goblin shook its head, musing. "If we performed an inheritance test today so that you can claim your titles – well within your right, as the only living male of the Potter family – you would likely be able to claim both the Potter lordship, any other lordships named to you by will, and any lordships that this Tom Marvolo Riddle Jr. had to his name."

He was speechless, breathless. _Lordship? Inheritance? I'm an heir?_ All of this information nearly made his head spin. "What would it mean to claim my titles?" He wanted to know where this society drew the lines for adulthood. Back in Konohagakure, once you graduated the Academy you were an adult in the sense that you could work as a beginner level ninja, a genin, but you still couldn't drink alcohol until you were 20 and only an orphan could buy their own home.

"It is very simple. For example, if you were only entitled to house Potter, you would claim your title as Lord Potter. You would have complete freedom over the Potter estate to buy and sell property, possessions, and house elves as you please and make decisions for any businesses house Potter owns. However, you will still be a minor until age 17, which means that you will have to do all of this from the comfort of your relative or guardian's home and cannot sit on the Wizengamot at the Ministry until then either." The goblin paused a moment to let it all sink in.

 _What's the Wizengamot? Or a house elf?_ He wondered. _How much money do I even have? I have no idea how to be a businessman. All I can do is fight. But it sounds like I will have more room to move freely and act on my own if I do this._

Griphook interrupted his stream of thoughts. "Was that clear, Potter?"

"Yes, Griphook, sir."

"Would you like to claim your titles today, Potter?"

He paused a beat, then spoke up, determined. "I will."

The goblin grinned again, excited, showing off jaws full of sharp, pointy teeth made to tear meat and bone. Griphook pointed at a ring and two keys hanging off a hook on the wall, and they levitated to him and placed themselves in front of him on the desk. It was a very old ring, with a stone of amethyst seated in a pair of English oak, wand-carved, seven-prong antlers. He put it on and felt the chakra – magic – in the ring reach out and anchor itself to his own. He gasped in surprise.

When he looked up, Griphook was smiling at him, entertained by his brief display of vulnerability. "May your vaults overflow with gold and your enemies fall dead at your feet, Lord Potter. If you were not the heir, it would not have allowed itself to be worn. Having it in your possession is proof enough of your title." It was an odd way of congratulating someone, that's for sure. "The smaller key will provide you access to the coin vault. Upon leaving this office, all of the coin in your trust fund will be moved to the Potter's coin vault and your trust vault will cease to belong to you. A Lord has no need for a mere trust fund. The larger key is to the Potter storage vault."

Griphook turned his attention to the vial with his blood sample in it from earlier. "I will test this sample to determine what else you are entitled to." Griphook waved its hand and levitated a fresh small parchment paper to sit beside the vial. It said a few words in the goblin tongue and the vial glowed for a moment.

As time passed, words appeared on the paper. "Lord Potter, you are entitled by way of an inheritance will or by right of blood to houses Peverell, Slytherin, Gaunt, and Black." His jaw about dropped to the floor. _How many families' money am I inheriting?!_ _Potter, Peverell, Gaunt, Slytherin, Black…that's five! Six if you count the Uchiha, but they don't appear to exist here._ "Don't get too excited, Lord Potter. All you will be walking out with is the Black title and partial access to the vaults. House Gaunt's lineage can be traced back through House Slytherin back to House Peverell. However House Gaunt's vault was repossessed by Gringotts due to it being left empty for 20 years several decades ago. You stand to inherit nothing from their line, save the Lordship ring, but that is in name only. Not even the Goblin King knows what Slytherin did with the Lordship ring for his house."

He relaxed. Just one extra vault and title was reasonable. He wouldn't know what to do with himself if he suddenly became a billionaire. Griphook continued. "Currently, there are three living members of the Black family. Their lineage is traced through the male line, and it appears that their heir one Sirius Black named you his successor eleven years ago." The goblin's expression became frustrated. "It's a…what do you people say, a tricky situation. He is currently incarcerated in Azkaban and unable to carry out his duties as Lord Black, which is why his lordship ring was sent back to us by your Ministry when he entered incarceration…however, the paperwork was unable to find any record of a trial and formal sentencing. He is an incarcerated free man."

Shisui paused, his heart racing, the gears in his head turning on overdrive. _What does that mean? Who threw an innocent man in jail?_ "What happened?"

"I don't know. I don't keep up with you wizards' affairs." Griphook replied gruffly. It waved its hand over the paper and the vial and the ink and blood vanished from them and they put themselves away. "I will speak with the Black family's finance manager. If they listed him as being medically incapacitated, then you have all rights to the title of Lord Black. I will send an owl as soon as I have the information for you, and after that you can come in at your earliest convenience to claim the Black ring and keys. Is that understood, Lord Potter?"

He nodded. "Yes, Griphook, sir."

The goblin nodded. "Would you like to set up a protected purse? So you don't have to come to Gringotts every time you need to go shopping." He nodded. Bank hours were a pain in the ass. "It will be connected to your primary vault, the Potter vault. You may set it up with an allowance if you so choose, or you may set it up like a muggle money card to endlessly refill itself. We have various protective measures to choose from. Is this clear, Lord Potter?"

He nodded, and Griphook continued. With a wave of its hand, several coin purses appeared, each appearing to be made out of a different material. "We have several options available. The first one will bite the hand of the thief, but it only has the strength of a dog so it acts as more of a warning to yourself than a real deterrent." It pointed to the next one and smirked. "This one will bite the thief's hand clean off, with all the strength of a werewolf on the full moon." It pointed to the third and final option and grinned. "This is my favorite. This one will set the thief's hand on fire with a flame never burns out."

He had to fight to keep the amazement off his face. _These goblins are brutal._ "I'll take the first one." He could protect his own money. "And the second option, please. I don't need an allowance."

Griphook frowned at him, as if disappointed in him for something. The options disappeared, and a brand new one appeared in front of him. "Your coin purse, Lord Potter. It contains the customary 100 galleon initial withdrawal. Will that be all, Lord Potter?" he nodded and Griphook motioned to the door. "Very well. You will be on your way. Good day, Lord Potter."

SCENE CHANGE

He sighed in relief and stretched when he finally got outside, ignoring the judgemental look the gate goblin was giving him. "Madara, that took forever!" He wished he had a watch, then he'd know how much time he had left. This world he'd been reincarnated into had spoiled him. He looked up at the sun. _Around noon. I've got time._

He spent the rest of the day doing his school supply shopping, and some personal shopping as well. He bought a large, bottomless, weightless school trunk to carry his school supplies in and a small leather bag for daily use at school, and a few books. He wanted to learn all about this new world he was apparently born into, being heir to a rich magical family. _Pureblood. Is that their term for a clan family?_ He couldn't explain it even to himself, he just felt like if he was too out of place, things wouldn't go well. He had to blend in. To that end, he also bought several wizarding outfits from a higher end store called Twilfitt and Tattings.

He rode the Knight Bus home later. "I'm home!" he called. He knew he was late, the setting sun alone told him that much.

His Aunt Petunia marched from the living room and into the hallway. and was greeted by an angry Aunt Petunia. "Harry! Where were you?! I had to-" the words died on her lips when she caught sight of the trunk he had set down beside him. Her face, red with anger, became ghostly pale. "Harry James Potter, explain yourself."


	6. Chapter 5 - Family

Edits: I made substantial edits to this chapter on 4/5 a few days after it was originally posted. Nothing story-changing, but enough that it might warrant a re-read.

Chapter 5 - Family

His Aunt Petunia marched from the living room and into the hallway, and he was greeted by an angry Aunt Petunia. "Harry! Where were you?! I had to-" the words died on her lips when she caught sight of the trunk he had set down beside him. In an instant her face, red with anger, became ghostly pale. "Harry James Potter, explain yourself."

It appeared she already knew what the trunk meant.

Vernon appeared beside her in the doorway and glanced at the trunk, looking confused. "What's wrong, Pet?" _So she knows its significance, and he doesn't._

He spoke up. "I've been accepted into Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I already sent in my reply accepting the position." He gestured to the trunk. "They gave the instructions in the letter, so I did my own school supply shopping."

Internally, he was anxious. _Please don't fight this. I don't want to have to move against you._ He preferred to avoid open conflict. _I thought this second kekkei genkai was because I'm a reincarnation, but there's a whole world full of people that can use it too! I need this._

"But I signed you up for Stonewall." His aunt sputtered, "You're going to Stonewall and that's final! I already dyed a uniform for you." she exclaimed. "We will go to Diagon Alley first thing tomorrow and return all of those things, and you will write to Albus and tell him that you changed your mind and will not be attending."

His eyes narrowed at her and he shifted his stance from lazy to alert. Anger. He felt anger. _She doesn't have the right. I hate being a kid here. I haven't been a kid since I was five years old!_ Prodigies don't get childhoods during wartime. He saw Vernon's expression shift as he realized what was going on. His face went through several colors in quick succession; first an angry red, then a sickly green, and finally a grayish-white like old porridge. _Now he gets it._ "Your Aunt's word is final. You will not be going!"

"No arguments, Harry. I will not have a freak in my house!" His aunt gestured to the living room. "Put the trunk in the living room and go to your cupboard."

He shook his head vigorously. "I'm sorry, Aunt Petunia. I just can't do that." He looked down at the weapons hostlers tied to his right leg, feeling forlorn and frustrated. "I can't lose this piece of me too without at least getting to see it for myself!" His aunt looked insulted at the first display of open rebellion in this life. His uncle looked livid.

 _Damnit I hate that I'm doing this here. So much for being a cool, collected ANBU agent. Even if in name only. Just to investigate the coup and try to stop it. Why did I think I could do that?_ "This is hard for me too, you know? Its great to have a family." _No matter how much they don't like me, anything's better than walking home to an empty apartment at 7 years old._ His cousins' Itachi and Sasuke's faces flashed in his mind. It was bittersweet, in his old life, going over to their house and seeing what he would never have. He could barely remember his mom and dad's faces even then. Now? He'd forgotten what they looked like entirely. "I've made my decision and I'm going to Hogwarts." The child in him that never got to live before craved this life, craved getting to pretend have a family, even if only for a little while, especially since he would never know what became of the Uchiha clan. _For all I know, they're all dead. Everyone. Even Sasuke!_ Shisui had been forced to grow up too fast, but Harry got the chance to try to play and live a carefree childhood. "I'm not naïve this time. I know you never wanted me. You didn't have to take me in, you could have just dumped me in an orphanage. But you didn't and I'm grateful for that. Otherwise I never would have known what it felt like to live in a house with a family."

His aunt and uncle were speechless for a solid couple of minutes. He stared a them, his heart pounding with anticipation and nervous tension. _Please. I can't lose this family, too._ They could just as easily put him out on the streets for this. He felt like a weak Academy kid begging them like this. He knew what he was to them, and Shisui the tokubetsu jouin never would have done this, but that was almost eleven years and one brand new childhood ago. He was Harry now, no matter how he felt about it all. He wasn't the same person that Danzo betrayed and assassinated.

His uncle was the first to speak. "I put up with you because you mean something to my wife. This is her decision. And if she says you have to go to Stonewall, then I will stand by her decision." He'd never heard his uncle talk so seriously in this whole life. He was solemn.

His aunt spoke next. "Bring me the letter. I want to see the letter." Denial, maybe? Reluctantly, he left his trunk at the door and went into his cupboard to get the letter, making sure to keep a foot against the door so they couldn't shut it on him and lock him in. He closed the door behind him and handed it to her wordlessly, envelope and all.

Her eyes widened when she saw the address. "Vernon, look at this. They know where he sleeps!"

Vernon moved closer to read it over her shoulder. "Do you think they're watching the house?"

His aunt shrugged and waved a hand around, gesturing in frustration. "I don't know, I don't know!" Her plans for his life were falling apart and she knew it. "They might be. They can kill people with nothing more than a flash of green light. They probably can monitor a house without being seen, too."

His eyes widened and it took all of his nine years as a shinobi to keep his reaction off his face. _A flash of green light?!_ For years as a small child he had a reoccurring nightmare that consisted of nothing more than a flash of green light, a high pitched, cackling laughter, and a woman's scream. _So that was…!_ He was shaking like a leaf. _My mother died right in front of me._ He felt moisture run down his face. Tears. He was crying. When did he start crying? He was too overcome with the realization to even think it through. A ninja who wasn't always two steps ahead was a dead ninja.

He could hear his aunt and uncle talking, as if from a distance far away through the forest. "What are we supposed to do? They're already watching the house. If anyone finds out about Harry sleeping in the cupboard, Dudley will be taken away."

He wanted to ask what happened, but he could scarcely breathe and the words died on his lips. _I never wanted anyone else to have to die because of me._

"We'll have to give him Dudley's playroom, then. He's outgrowing it, anyways. Its just a storage room now."

He felt chakra surge into his orbital sockets, and the familiar pulsing of chakra in his eyes. _Sharingan. I probably activated a second tomoe._ Everyone around him always died, its why he kept everyone at arms length.

"But how are we supposed to pay for furniture for it? Dudley just had his birthday."

His mom and dad, the two nine-year-old's that he'd graduated with Kaito Uzumaki and Aiko, and his entire original deployment squad all died in the Third War. He was just a little boy and had survived by sheer luck.

"What about _that_ school? You can't really be thinking about letting him go!"

His first jounin sensei and two of his Academy teachers had died in the Kyuubi attack. A Hyuuga as well as an Inuzuka's canine partner on his team during the continued war with Kumo after the Kyuubi attack.

"What choice do we have? If we don't let him go peacefully, they'll send the deputy headmistress to the house! Just think what everyone would say if one of _them_ showed up at our door."

The naïve, overzealous Aburame boy that had been assigned to the four-man squad of chuunin that he had been assigned to lead during the war with Kiri. It had only ended mere months before his death. He had asked to be listed as an ANBU agent and given permission to move freely so that he could investigate the clan's plans for a coup not long after he got home. _I failed the only mission I ever took as an ANBU agent. To investigate the clan's plans and find a peaceful resolution!_

"Fine, he can go. He's your problem, Pet. Just don't spend too much redecorating the bedroom. Dudley deserves to be spoiled just as much as he always has for Christmas now that he's going to Smeltings."

It barely registered that he was getting a real bedroom and might even be allowed to peacefully attend Hogwarts. _And for all I know, the entirety of the Uchiha clan joined that list too._

"Then we'll take him to the secondhand store and pick out some cheap bedroom furniture. He won't be using it for most of the year anyways."

He felt faint and had to back up against the wall to brace himself against it. _What if they're all dead now?_ _The whole entire clan. Just like my mother. Why did my mother die?_ None of it made sense.

The sound of footsteps made him snap to attention and he looked up at his aunt and uncle for the first time in an eternity. They were walking away from him and into the kitchen to talk behind closed doors, not realizing he could still hear them even behind his cupboard door. Seizing the opportunity, he darted for his cupboard and slammed the door shut, locked it with his magic, grabbed a hand me down pokemon twin size blanket, and curled up against the far wall.

 _Everyone's probably long dead by now! And its all my fault because I didn't see what Danzo was up to. I let him steal my eye!_ Tears were still silently falling down his cheeks. If he'd been in Konoha, it never would have got this far. He would have just body-flickered to the nearest empty training field and pushed himself until he collapsed and slept right there in the grass. But he wasn't back home in Konoha. Not even Itachi got to see this side of him, and he considered Itachi his best friend and little brother. Itachi only got to see a small glimpse of it back on that cliff right before he died when he told him about Kaito's death. _I'm so, so fucking sorry Itachi. I died and left you with such a painful, impossible burden._ He looked up at the ceiling of his cupboard through blurred vision, and finally remembered to pull back the flow of chakra to his eyes. _Can you hear me, Itachi? Are you even still alive? If only I'd seen through Danzo from the start maybe it'd have been different._

Author's note: I feel like this was an entirely unnecessary chapter and I'm too sleepy to edit it properly. What do you think? I actually don't hate it, I feel like Shisui despite his lack of character development is likely just as skilled and just as mentally fucked up as Kakashi was. They were both Jounin at a very young age. Still, I never expected this to come out. Not entirely sure if I like it, but its different, so I'm posting it anyways. I think the AMV I was listening to on repeat while I wrote this chapter probably heavily influenced how it turned out.


	7. Chapter 6 - Humanity

Edit – I made a few alterations on 4/5 a few days after posting. Mostly to make it flow better.

Chapter 6 - Humanity

Petunia spent the entire morning cleaning out Dudley's playroom. It used to be a toy room when he was a toddler, and then it became a place for him and his friends to play and watch tapes. But as Dudley grew older and started to only want to play computer games and video games, it lost its purpose. Dudley hadn't touched most of the toys in there in years.

Even so, Dudley had thrown a fit demanding to keep everything in it. "But I…don't…want…him to…have it!" The boy wailed between fake sobs. "And…my…computer!" Dudley knew that if he wailed and faked crying for long enough, his aunt would get flustered and give him whatever he wanted because she was afraid of him throwing a temper tantrum.

Uncle Vernon wasn't helping any. "Little tyke just wants what's his!" he said, chuckling at the display. "Just like his father."

"Listen, sweetums, we'll move the computer into your room. How about that?" His aunt said, kneeling to wrap an arm around her son and pull him in for a hug. "We're only going to sell the ones you don't play with anymore."

She moved to pick up a robotic dog that barked and did tricks. Dudley had got from Aunt Marge for Christmas a few years ago. "Do you remember this? You played with it for a week and then never touched it again."

Dudley sniffled and cried some more but nodded. "Y-Yes. But I…don't…want…him to…have it!" he repeated.

Petunia looked flustered, and looked around at the mountain of toys in the toy box, long abandoned, and the baskets full of still more abandoned toys, books, and games. He wasn't sure Dudley had ever willingly touched a book in his life. He still had a decent pile of childrens' books in his playroom from his preschooler days nonetheless.

"How about this, darling." His aunt said, finally. "Instead of donating the toys at the secondhand shop, we'll have a garage sale. We'll go to the store after dinner and you can pick out some new computer games or video games. How about that?"

Dudley nodded and wiped his face on a sleeve. "O-okay." He returned his mother's hug and wrapped his arms around her neck.

"What about the secondhand store, Pet?" Vernon spoke up. He sounded quite displeased. "I have work tomorrow. I can't just take off work for the day to help you move furniture." He said, gesturing at the playroom in frustration. "We have to pay for Smeltings somehow."

Petunia looked at him. "You'll help me." She spoke as if the answer was obvious. "You can run the garage sale, and I'll go look for furniture with Harry."

Vernon sighed. "Alright, Pet." He sounded disgruntled at his wife's idea. "Boy, come help me get the boxes from the garage."

Petunia drove the pickup truck Vernon had borrowed from a friend and took Shisui to London to the secondhand store. "You had better keep your room clean, Harry." She warned him sternly, leading the way into the store. "I'm doing more for you than you deserve. We're cutting into Dudley's Christmas to give you a nice bedroom."

"Yes, Aunt Petunia, I will," Shisui replied. He genuinely did appreciate being taken care of, even if it was as reluctant and unwilling as this was. He had always taken care of himself.

A clerk greeted them from the front desk as they walked in. "Good morning, welcome!" It didn't look like it was originally a store, but merely repurposed to be one.

He waved at the clerk. "Morning!" Aunt Petunia ignored the clerk entirely.

They spent a good several hours picking out furniture. Like him when he was a genin on a budget furnishing his first apartment, his Aunt Petunia was looking for something cheap that would last until he graduated Hogwarts and would fit through the doors of the house. In the end, she bought him a small twin bed frame, a nightstand, two lamps, a small bulletin board for his wall that she only let him get because it didn't even cost a pound, a 6-drawer dresser, and a wardrobe because the room didn't have a closet. It was all mismatched; the bed frame was mahogany, the nightstand and dresser were oak, and the wardrobe was ash wood.

He helped her load it into the back up the pickup and it took two trips to get everything back to the house. The drive was tense and silent. He wanted to ask about his mother. _What happened? Why did she die protecting me?_ There was no other explanation he could think of for remembering the flash of green light and her screaming. He was there when she died. _All my life, she said they died in a car crash coming home drunk from a Halloween party. That that's how I got the scar on my forehead._

He couldn't wrap his head around his aunt's blind hatred for his mother and himself, though. _I died trying to save my family, even the ones I couldn't stand to be around._ Like Yashiro, Inabi, and Tekka.They were the three senior officials of the Konoha Military Police, and his uncle Fugaku's right hand men. _They ordered me to spy on Itachi. But I still would have given up everything to save them._ They were halfway back to Little Whinging, now. _There's no such thing as justice. Everyone just fights believing in their own justice, trying to live another day so they can go back home to their families._ He had always lived trying to see the humanity in everyone, even his targets in missions. _Like that traitor, the spy, Kohinata Mukai._ It had been Itachi's test to decide if he was worthy of promotion from Chuunin to ANBU, and he'd chosen him as his one partner for the mission. His cousin was so good at killing people that they were considering let him skip Jounin rank entirely. He himself was a tokubetsu jounin at the time.

 _"Mukai!" Shisui shouted, dumbfounded, the hand around his throat releasing him at last. Before his eyes, Mukai fell, a spray of blood shooting from his stomach._

 _Itachi had stared, rooted to the spot. Mukai had cut his own stomach. The instant Shisui's sharingan had been activated, Mukai had stiffened slightly, and pulled a kunai from his pocket to slash a cross into his own belly._

 _"Hold on, Mukai!" Shisui shouted, crouching down to cradle the ninja's head._

Eleven year old Itachi had helped Mukai get a cigarette out, put it between his lips, and light it for him. He wasn't their enemy anymore; now he was just a dying man who would never get to go home to his wife or see his son in the hospital ever again.

 _I just don't understand it. Your clan – your family – is all you're guaranteed to ever have in life._ When he came home from the Third war an orphan, people from the clan had been there for him. Plenty of people brought him meals, some of whom would stay and visit or invite him over for dinner. A few of the older Uchiha kids would train with him if they happened to see him in the Uchiha's training grounds. His grandfather, Uchiha Kagami's son, had made a point to put in D-rank missions asking for him specifically to help out around the house. He'd been caught by a bomb blast in the Second War and lost his legs, and lived out the rest of his life confined to a wheelchair.

Dinner was simple that night. After shopping and moving furniture all day, even with her nephew and husbands help, she just didn't feel like cooking a nice meal. Shisui had sat down to a simple meal of ham and cheese sandwiches and macaroni and cheese from a box and then retreated to finish moving into his new bedroom. His aunt and cousin would be gone a while, as they were going to get the computer or video games she'd promised him, and his uncle was watching a program on tv.

A single cardboard box below the shelves in his cupboard held all of the clothes he owned. His trunk had been shoved in the cupboard once the mattress was moved out of it and put on the bed upstairs earlier, and a shopping bag containing three different locks was still sitting on the coffee table in the living room waiting to be installed on the cupboard door.

 _Like that's gonna stop me._ Using his magic to silence his movements and create a magical genjutsu of sorts so that his uncle wouldn't notice him, he opened up the trunk without hesitation. _Hmm. What do I need most out of here right now?_ He dug around and got out his new school bag from Wizeacre's Wizarding Equipment and inside it he put his wand of hawthorn and unicorn hair and a few books. _Introduction to the Magical World for Muggleborns…Magical Theory…the Standard Book of Spells Grade 1…and The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection. That'll do for a while._ Then, he closed the trunk and shut the cupboard door, his uncle none the wiser.

His room was at the top of the stairs on the right, across from the bathroom, and he shared a wall with the rarely used guest bedroom, which sat across from Dudley's room. At least this way, with plenty of room to call his own, he could put up privacy seals and learn about the magical world.

 _I bet my aunt won't mind daily trips to Diagon Alley, either. She can hardly stand to be in the same room with me now that I'm going to Hogwarts._ He didn't mind it, really. He had been concerned that they would kick him out like they always said they should have done when he was a toddler. _That would have been bad. Being able to kill a whole squad of enemy ninja with ease isn't much good here. I just don't have the skillset for a world at peace with no fighting._

In Konoha, he would've been fine even being lost in a forest or the mountains because he knew how to fish and hunt and what plants could be eaten in a survival situation on missions. _I hardly know anything about this place._ She might not like him, but she kept a roof over his head anyways, and she still went out and bought furniture for him. _She doesn't have to do anything for me._ Even if mostly out of concern for her own son and their reputation.

Author's Note: thanks for all the feedback on the last chapter! I really appreciate it means a lot to see good comments. Like I said in some replies, I'm experimenting with letting the story write itself and I've never done that. What did you think of this one? Its just a continuation of last chapter, really. Next chapter, he won't be at home. Its still gonna be another setup chapter I think. Am I writing out too much pre-Hogwarts stuff?


	8. Omake 1 - Mum

Omake 1 - Mother

Thursday, October 30th, 1997. Shisui sat in the darkness of his cupboard for the seventh day in a row. Currently, he was focusing his new kekkei genkai so it would silence the chorus of growls his stomach was emitting. _Whatever Aunt Petunia made for dinner, it smells good._ By now he'd been in there as many days as he was years old. _I suppose for a kid it would be pretty miserable. But I've had worse, so this makes good training._ Indeed, he had learned how to do a lot of things with his new kekkei genkai because of the frequency of being sent to his cupboard without meals until his aunt and uncle were done being mad at him.

One of the first things he'd learned was how to vanish feces and urine from the bucket in the corner that his uncle had only put there after he'd had an accident being left in here as a small child. Because not only did they smell the room up, but his aunt and uncle would get mad and add another day to his punishment. Then, he learned how to levitate and eventually transfigure small toys he'd found that Dudley had abandoned. By the time he was in primary school he could easily use his kekkei genkai to silently sneak out of his cupboard to the kitchen and duplicate some food both to eat now and hide in the loose floorboard of his cupboard below his mattress.

He wouldn't have been nearly as good at using his new kekkei genkai if he hadn't been trained in his first life from the age of two or three to be a shinobi. It was what got him in trouble a lot, too. He wasn't afraid of being grounded to his cupboard so he didn't hide his frequent use of it, and when his cousin told on him or when his aunt or uncle saw him he would get grounded to his cupboard with no meals until they stopped being mad at him. This time, it was because he had accidentally used his new kekkei genkai to teleport to the cafeteria rooftop during recess when Dudley and his gang were chasing him. He let them chase him, because it was the only practice evading attacks that he got. They could never catch him, anyways.

He got stuck on the rooftop because he couldn't body flicker yet and he couldn't replicate whatever it was his magic just did because no matter how hard he wished to get back down, it wouldn't respond. _I guess I need to train it._ His Aunt Petunia had been furious and humiliated when she was called up to the school to come and pick him up. The fire department had to come to the school and get him down, so naturally everyone was talking about it. He was the talk of the town for days. He was being assigned six days of out of school suspension for climbing the school building and the school board would be meeting to discuss how it may have happened and how to prevent it from happening again. He'd been locked in here ever since, only let out when his aunt got up and before she went to bed to go to the bathroom and be fed two small meals. He wouldn't be going back to school or be able to go outside to train until Monday.

Friday, October 31st. Halloween. Shisui was up at dawn because its what his body was used to, but being locked in his cupboard he was forced to find other, quiet, ways to occupy his time in the increasingly cramped space. Today, he was practicing speeding through hand seals for jutsu while he listened to his uncle and cousin get ready for work and school respectively. Dudley was excited to go trick or treating with his friends, Piers and Malcolm, later that night. The mother of one of the other boys would be taking them.

He wouldn't be going, of course. But even if he'd been given the option, he didn't think that he would have felt like celebrating and being happy today. _Today's the day my mother and father died. Lily and James Potter._ He didn't want to forget their names, too. Today was a rather somber day, and he thought that even if he wasn't suspended from school for the week, he might have wanted to stay in anyways. He just couldn't get the energy to do anything today.

The sound of footsteps jogged him out of his thoughts. _Aunt Petunia._ No sudden, impatient rapping on the door today. Just a shadow blocking the light from the living room coming in from under the door and the sound of a lock sliding out of place. "Time to get up, Harry. You can come out now." She didn't open the door for him, but left it shut and walked off towards the living room.

He was surprised. _I'm ungrounded already?_ Probably because of what day it was. He got dressed in the first clean shirt and pants he found in his cardboard box of clean clothes under the shelves and exited his cupboard. He spared a glance at his aunt as he shut the door. She was looking for something on the bookshelf of home videos and family photo albums. There was none of the usual tightly wound impatience in her movements, just lethargy, just sadness. _She misses my mother._

"What are you looking for?" he asked, walking over to her and daring to get close enough to be within arms' reach.

A moment of silence as his aunt pulled an aged, worn photo album from the line of them on the shelf. Its spine was just short of being in tatters from it being pulled out and paged through so many times. "I hate autumn." She said. There was no venom in her tone, just mourning.

"First, my grandparents passed away. Then my parents were murdered in that-in that house break in. And then your mother went and got drunk with that hoodlum that she married and crashed the car, killing them both." It had been a Halloween party, she told him. He had been quite disappointed when he heard how low class his new parents were, but even so he couldn't help but miss them. _Even if they were just unemployed alcoholics, what kid doesn't want to know and be loved by their parents?_ When he was little, he had often wished that at least in this new life, he had gotten a chance to grow up with his parents. _You always want what you don't have._

His aunt gave a world-weary, long-suffering sigh. _She just wants her family back._ He knew that that played a part in why she acted the way she did. "I've never shown you what your mother looked like, have I?" She sat down right there on the floor and motioned for him to do the same. He sat down on his feet and for once his aunt didn't give him a look for it.

His vision went gone blurry with a rush of unshed tears and emotion caught in his throat. _I don't even remember what my mom and dad looked like. I had a photo of them, but it's gone in Konohagakure now._ He didn't give a verbal reply, and just shook his head yes, not trusting himself to speak. _At least I'll know what my new mother looks like. I wonder if they were excited to have me, too?_

She opened the photo album to a page of family photos. "This is when Lily was born. January 30th, 1970. I was 3." There were several pages of the day that his mom was born; pale, freckled skin, blue eyes, and a vibrant shock of red hair on her tiny newborn head.

"Her eyes didn't stay blue. They turned green, like my mum's." _I have mother's eyes?_ It was heartwarming to hear, that he had something in common with one of his parents. It felt so…indescribably good to get to know his new parents. _I wonder which one I act more like? Itachi looks a lot like his mom, and he has her heart, but he's got his father's will._

"She looked just like grandma, though. They had so much in common, those two." She said, tears trailing silently down her face as she flipped through more and more pages of family photos. _This is the main family photo album._ His grandmother, Daisy, had blonde hair and green eyes while his great-grandmother, Dahlia, had vibrant red hair, pale skin, and freckles just like his mother.

"Can you tell me about them? About my mum? And grandma, and great-grandma?" Looking at the photos and back at his aunt, he thought his aunt Petunia took after his grandmother and grandfather both. Her petite, bony frame was from his grandmother while her hair and eyes were all his grandfather's. "Do I have anything in common with them, too?"

An awkward pause. His aunt wasn't used to talking to him like he was her nephew and not an unwanted houseguest. "Lily and Grandma Dahlia were vivacious, witty, and charming. Grandma Dahlia did the most beautiful needlework." She handed him the album to hold and went to get a framed cross-stitch art piece from the wall. There were several of them all around the house. He remembered his aunt Petunia working on a few of the more simple ones when he was a small child. Dudley still had one in his room that she'd made for him as an infant.

This particular one that his aunt had taken off the wall to show him was of a picturesque house with a lush, well-manicured yard. "This is the house we grew up in. Grandma Dahlia made it for Vernon and I as a wedding gift." _Her most cherished wedding gift of them all._

He was in awe, looking at the needlework. All of it, painstakingly done by hand, stitch by stitch. Hours upon hours, days upon days, of work went into this. _Making this took as much work as learning a new jutsu._ "Did mum do needlework, too? Like you do?"

His aunt shook her head, a cross look dawning on her face. "No. Lily turned her nose up a normal activities. She was always spending the day out playing with that other hoodlum boy when we were kids." His aunt put the cross-stitch art back on the wall where it belonged and reached for the photo album. She flipped to a photo of two teenage girls showing off Christmas presents for the camera – his mother and his aunt.

"She fell in with the wrong crowd. Got kicked out of secondary school and put in a special school for troublemakers." His aunt's voice was wavering, so close to bursting into tears. It wasn't anything like the short and clipped voice that she usually used when talking to him or about his parents. "She fell in love with that Potter boy she met there and married him, and that's when everything fell apart. Within two years, everyone was dead."

She could barely speak between sobs and hiccups. Sapphire blue eyes met emerald green and for perhaps the first time in his life, he saw no scorn in them. "Everyone but you." There was some weight to what she was saying. Words left unsaid. It was just a gut feeling he had. But the emotion, that was real. She hid it well, and she doted on her son to fill the void, but this neverending sorrow was always there. Still, he wondered. _What is she not saying?_

He let the words hang in the air for a moment, unsure what to say to respond. He'd been surrounded by death his whole life, but that was in war. What was he supposed to say, now? He looked at the photographs from their teenage Christmas and ran his fingers over the image of his mother. "Do you have any photos of me and my mum and dad?"

His aunt snapped the book up, stood so quickly he thought she must've felt dizzy, and roughly put it back on the bookshelf. "No, Harry. I don't. She never sent any." she said quickly, too quickly for it to be a genuine answer. "Lily and I had a falling out when Vernon and I invited her to dinner to announce our engagement."

His face fell and he looked, downcast, at his knees "Oh. That's too bad." He really was disappointed. A heavy weight settled in his heart, realizing that his aunt had no photos of his mother and him. _I wonder if she had photos but was so angry she threw them out._ "Can I have a photo?" he asked, looking up at is aunt's sapphire blue eyes again. "A school photo maybe?" His aunt hadn't lingered on the school photographs as much as she had the holiday ones when she was looking through.

Wordlessly, she flipped through the photo album and took out his mother's final primary school photograph. "Here, you can have this one." He grinned and his face lit up as he accepted the photo. "Thank you!" He got a push-pin from the kitchen, ran to his cupboard, and put his mum's photo up on the wall of his cupboard right away.

He turned on his light and stared at it for a long time. _This is my mum._ She had the same bright, emerald green eyes that he did. _Lily._ His mother was little more than 10 or 11 in the photograph. Her long, wavy red locks, normally frizzy, were cascading smoothly down her back with a few strands pulled over her shoulder. She wore a simple short sleeve, light blue dress with small floral prints on it. "Hello, mum."

Author's Note: I wrote this cause I had the inspiration for it a day or two ago, but only wrote it now. I feel like it would've turned out better if I'd written it in the moment. I wrote picturing my mom mourning her brother every year and trying to picture that with Petunia talking to Harry, but I don't know if it got across in the chapter that well. I posted edited versions of chapters 5 and 6 so maybe go back and read them again? At least chapter 5 that one had substantial edits to it. Rereading it, I wasn't happy with how emotional he was. But then, I feel like this turned out overly emotional too? But I don't want him to behave like a distant shinobi the whole fanfic, I feel like that would be boring and unrealistic, too, for him not to form bonds with his new family.

What do you all think of it? I'm working on figuring out some things in my head with the characters before I move on to the Hogwarts Express chapter. I'll have one more Diagon Alley chapter and that's it. And even that's iffy, I'm debating just putting him on the Hogwarts Express. But I don't want to rush things. I feel like if I rush, I'll miss explaining a detail that could be important later.


	9. Chapter 7

Chapter 7 – The Journey from Platform 9 ¾

Key: _Thoughts_ versus **Speaking in Japanese**

Summer of 2001 passed by rather quickly. Shisui spent most of his time training in the park or people watching in Diagon Alley under a henge. To everyone else, he was just you average, plain looking brown haired, brown-eyed short muggleborn kid studying for his first year at Hogwarts. His true intentions weren't just to study, though, but to gather information. He wanted to observe people's mannerisms and customs and learn the slang they used and, hopefully, get some political information too.

The first important revelation of the summer occurred when Gringotts sent a letter naming him Lord Black. Apparently, Sirius Black was indeed listed as medically incapacitated by his own finance manager, leaving rights as heir to him. The two living Black women were married and had no claim to the Black estate in the rather archaic system of inheritance the Europeans used. Back in Konoha, even surnames after marriage were decided not by the husband's name but by who held the more powerful clan name. That's why Itachi's girlfriend and distant relative, Izumi, had her mother's Uchiha name despite the fact that her father was a civilian blacksmith. Naruto was also an Uzumaki not just for his own safety, but because the Uzumaki name had more presence, strength and history to it than did the Namikaze name and Minato being the Yondaime Hokage didn't change that.

He had resolved to ignore the mansions and cabins and houses he was currently in possession of. The bank had owl'd a massive packet of parchment detailing the contents of his two vaults and all of the possessions now in his name. He had a house elf, as well, from the Black family named Kreacher but he wasn't sure how he felt about enslaving a magical creature, so he had yet to call it to his side to do anything for him. The Potters used to have one too, but it was released from the contract about 12 years ago. I wonder why. Surely not just cause they didn't like having an enslaved creature. He had seen them at the House Elf Placement Agency on Carkitt Market Street. Tiny, bony elf-like creatures wearing no shoes and nothing but found clothing like a pillowcase that had long gone yellow with sweat and dead skin cells.

But one important question still remained. Why did he name me his heir, anyways? Did he not have a son of his own? Or was he friends with my father?

He had looked for old newspapers, but no one in Diagon Alley carried old ones. He had been lucky even just to find last week's Daily Prophet. Hopefully Hogwarts has some, like for writing _essays even. I need to figure out why he was incarcerated, and what his relation to me is._

The second revelation came from a book, of all things. _My mother and father were killed by some evil rogue wizard that no one will name even in a book. He started a war over blood purity and rights for magical creatures, and waged war on everyone._

It sounded similar to Kirigakure's own internal conflicts between civilians and clans. _And somehow, despite me being the only survivor, their spells were able to piece together what happened. The rogue wizard warlord shot an unblockable killing curse at me, the same one he killed my mother with, and it somehow rebounded and killed him instead._

That was the part that really got him, and he'd spent many, many days and nights curled up with books trying to figure out an explanation for it. _If its unblockable, its unblockable. But the spells said it was definitely that curse – only five spells were used that night. Three killing curses, a spell that broke the door down, and an anti-apparition ward._ Eventually, he concluded that this would be another thing to look for leads in the Hogwarts Library about. _That and the Sirius Black case._

His aunt and uncle had spent the last two months ignoring him completely, acting as if he were invisible even at dinner. One time, he levitated the last portion of pot roast onto his plate and no one, not even Dudley, said a word about it. None of the usual yelling and general upheaval at his sudden display of abnormality, or freakishness, as they called it, as if the word magic was a curse word. They had always wanted to stamp it out of him from day one. The silent treatment was a bit depressing after a while, but he didn't mind all that much. _They'll get over it._

For the first time in his life, he could reach for the bacon at family weekend breakfasts together without Dudley getting territorial and yelling and trying to hit him to take it. Dudley was terrified of him now that he was going to a school for magic so he could learn how to use his magic even better than he already knew how to use it.

Soon, summer was gone and Dudley was off to Smeltings. Dudley would be living in a dormitory and move in day was a week before term, so Shisui had an entire weekend to himself in the house. It was rather nice, to get to cook whatever he wanted to eat and actually watch the tv for a change. A nice little vacation, really, until Aunt Petunia came home and cried her eyes out about how her little Duddikins was off to school all grown up.

Night of August 31st, and he couldn't sleep. It was normal really, he always had trouble falling asleep. His mind brought back all sorts of buried horrors from shinobi life when the whole house was quiet and there was nothing to do. He'd been awake so long that he got hungry, so he soundlessly walked downstairs to get a snack, carefully avoiding the creaky floorboard or two downstairs in the hall.

When he came back up, though, he heard talking coming from Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon's bedroom at the end of the hall. He walked slowly, cautiously, to their door and crouched outside to listen, making to not block the sliver of light coming in under the door.

"Was it really worth it, Pet? Taking the boy in." Uncle Vernon said, disgruntled. "You couldn't make him like us in the end. He was never one of us."

"I know, Vernon. I know." Petunia snapped. "I think I always knew. I just didn't want to believe it. I couldn't just abandon him, he was my sister's son, and after everything we lost…after my parents were murdered by that madman…I couldn't lose Harry, too. Besides, what sort of person would I be if I said no to my own flesh and blood?"

 _Madman? Did He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named kill my grandparents, too? Why? Were they trying to find me and my parents? But why us?_

"Yes, and that's the only reason I let you keep him, Pet. You said that the blood wards would protect us from his followers until they all could be arrested and put in prison."

 _Blood wards? What are blood wards? I assume his followers would have gone after me to kill me for being the reason their leader died._

"Let me? Vernon you didn't give a damn if I kept him or not. You just wanted nothing to do with him." Petunia replied, incredulously. "I couldn't live in fear anymore, Vernon. You don't know what that's like, cause you idn't understand, you still don't understand. The absolute horror it is, every minute, expecting those – those freaks who followed that madman to break in and kill us all to try to find Lily and James."

A moment of silence, then she continued, her voice shaking with grief and tears. "Did you know, Vernon? The only reason we were spared was because Severus told them that we had a falling out. That's why my parents and my grandparents were killed instead of us, Vernon. Because no one thought she would seek shelter with me." Then, she broke down crying, and Vernon consoled her, and the conversation was over.

He went back to his room with a heavy heart. _So that's how they died. I always thought she was leaving out details, but never something that big. I wonder what blood wards are? Given the context, they sound like some kind of protective barrier fuinjutsu._

To say the least, he didn't sleep well that night.

It was the morning of Saturday, September 1st. He had gotten up just before dawn as usual, got dressed for training and headed out with his weapons hostlers on his leg, holding a bag of apples he'd duplicated. Crows will eat nearly anything but with not a single penny to his name, this was all he had to give them.

It didn't take him long to get to his familiar clearing in the grove of trees by the park. As usual, the crows were waiting in the trees around the clearing for him. He scattered the diced pieces of apples around the clearing for them to eat, as payment for the work he was about to make them do, and an incentive to continue to work for him. This was the flock of crows he'd chakra bonded with as first-generation summon animals, like Itachi's had been.

" **Lets work hard, hm?"** He said, sitting down on the grass and speaking in his native tongue to them, watching them eat. **"We almost have the substitution technique down perfect."** They had mastered the basic crow substitution technique, and he was working with them on pecking at the attacker, too.

Shisui made the horse sign with his hands. **"Shadow clone jutsu!"** He had spent years running laps around the neighborhood and building up his chakra reserves so he could do this jutsu, finally.

A clone of himself popped into existence beside him. **"Hey, boss! Crow body replacement technique again?"**

He nodded. **"Yep! Let's do this. You know what to do."** He pushed chakra to his eyes and activated his two-tomoe sharingan.

His shadow clone leapt up into the trees and hid himself. He waited, looking and listening, for the attack.

Then, with barely a rustle of leaves, his shadow clone launched itself from the bushes behind him, hurling a volley of shuriken at him, which he blocked easily with a kunai. His shadow clone came in behind the shuriken, fist up and ready to hit him.

He bit his thumb so it bled, activated the summoning seal so it glowed between his hands, and sped through the hand signs. Tiger, boar, ox, dog, snake. **"Substitution technique!"**

His clone's fist landed itself square in the jaw for but a moment, an illusion caused by a visual delay really, before his body turned into dozens of crows, cawing, angry. **"Attack!"** He ordered, from his new spot in a tree nearby. To his relief, they remembered and flocked around his clone, pecking at it mercilessly. It shielded its face with tis arms, trying to protect it from the worst of the damage. It dispelled in seconds.

He clicked his tongue to mark the behavior, hopped down, and pulled out some nuts he'd found. **"Good job."**

Using his magic, he duplicated them and cracked them for the crows, throwing them on the ground where his shadow clone was moments crows ate up and then dispersed back to the trees to watch him train. Well, some of them did. Others flew off.

Not minding that he had a good dozen pecking wounds on his arms now, he grabbed the targets laying against his taijutsu training tree and levitated them to random spots around the clearing so he could practice his throwing. _Its not as good as the training forest back home, but it'll do._

As usual, he hit all nine. He did several rounds of this, in varying levels of difficulty, using his one-hand seal kunai duplication technique he'd shown Itachi way back when to multiply the kunai before he threw them. It made his weapons last longer. After that, he practiced taijutsu at a tree for a while. He'd gotten the idea from his old teammate during the war with Kiri, Hyuuga Hiroki. Its how the Hyuuga trained for their gentle fist style on their own time.

Hours passed, and soon the sun was up and joggers were starting to appear. _Time to go home._ He wouldn't get in his running today, because he would be at school, but this was good enough. He went home to get changed into his school uniform and eat breakfast before they had to leave. He'd come in to eat after his usual morning training session, dressed in the white button up and black trousers of his Hogwarts uniform with his weapons hostlers tied to his right leg, to see his uncle eating a bowl of some kind of chocolate flavored cereal at the table over the morning paper.

"Good morning, Uncle Vernon." he said, to try to keep things friendly and polite. "I'm supposed to go to Kings Cross Station today to board the train to school. Will you be taking me?"

Vernon grunted and deigned to look up at him. "Of course not. You're your aunt's problem, not mine. Go ask her." Vernon scoffed and returned his gaze to the headlines.

Turning on his heels, he went to his Aunt Petunia in the living room. She was on the couch watching a program on tv. "Aunt Petunia, can you take me to Kings Cross? So I can catch the train to school."

She looked at him, scornfully, but there wasn't as much heat there as there used to be. _She gave up on me._ "May as well. They'll be sending someone to get you personally if I don't, I'm sure."

She didn't ask him if he had everything, or any specific items, like Mikoto would have, but that would have been awkward to tell the truth. He put on his school uniform shoes, grabbed his trunk and followed her to the car, and they we off. No one spoke the entire ride there, and they arrived at half past ten. She pulled up in front of Kings Cross and dropped him off there, and within seconds she was gone and he was all alone in front of the building.

He'd never been to a train station before, even back home. Some people were giving him looks as he put his school trunk on a trolly and wheeled it inside all on his own. He followed the signs and the people, trying to see if there was a sign anywhere. _Maybe they've got a hidden platform sign, like the Leaky Cauldron?_

When nothing showed up, and he was left sitting on a random bench between platforms 9 and 10 just waiting awkwardly, watching everyone and feeling anxious at being surrounded by so many unknowns. Too many people to keep an eye on all at once in preparation for an attack. No that he needed to, just old habits die hard. _Maybe they've got it hidden like the entrance to Diagon Alley._

It was hard to find potential witches or wizards to watch, though, when so many people were dressed in similar school uniforms. Hogwarts students would certainly blend in well, for being such a medieval society.

Finally, after a good ten minutes of people watching, he found a suspicious looking stone pillar between the platforms. In a very unnatural way, much like a genjutsu, one was paying any attention to it. No one looked at it and people who walked within a meter or two of it suddenly seemed to remember something and take off in another direction. And the oddest part about it? No one noticed how suddenly everyone remembered something to attend to or something they forgot or such, either.

He sat back and watched as several families sent their children through the platform, all pushing traditional old trunks and owl cages and cat crates on trollies just like he was. Finally, he got up and went in himself, running at the wall pushing the trolly and trying not to instinctually brace for impact.

On the other side of the platform was a sleek, shiny black and red train with the words Hogwarts Express on the side. He stepped aside to let others through and saw that, sure enough, the sign above the platform read 'Platform 9 ¾'.

It was just as crowded and noisy in here as it was outside. People were talking and yelling and screaming in delight at seeing close friends again. Over by the pet carriage, an attendant was loading cages and crates onto the train. Owls were hooting in indignance at being jostled and cats were hissing at each other, and the owls, in a mixture of fear and anger.

Families were crowding around children in varying degrees of dressed in uniform and not dressed in uniform. You could tell who was from what background by what the non-uniformed kids wore. The muggleborn kids came in all alone dressed in familiar clothes, while children from wizarding families teleported in wearing mostly fancy or aged century-or-two old clothing styles. _I doubt a magic-raised kid would even be able to dress themselves in modern clothes._

Shisui found an empty compartment and put his trunk up on the top rack, mildly surprising himself when it shrunk itself to fit with plenty of room left for two other trunks. _Wow. All the uses for magic they think of, its surprising. But useful._

He was alone for just a few moments before a boy with red hair as bright as an Uzumaki's opened the compartment door. "Hullo. Anyone else sitting here?" He was tall, thin, and had big hands and feet and freckles. "Everywhere else is full." They had waited until the last moment to get on the train.

He shook his head. "No, come on in." he replied, gesturing to the bench across from him.

"Thanks." The boy replied, hauling his own heavy trunk onto the rack above. "I'm Ron Weasley."

"My name's Harry Potter."

The boy's expression went from bored and apprehensive to shocked in seconds. "Blimey. Are you really Harry Potter? And have you really got the – uh, you know –" he didn't finish, and pointed to his forehead.

He nodded and, obliging, he pushed his spiky black hair out of the way, revealing the strange lightning shaped scar. He was used to gawkers asking rude questions back in Konoha.

"So that's where You Know Who….?" Ron asked.

"Uh-huh." He replied. "Supposedly. No one really knows exactly what happened. I don't remember it."

"Nothing?" Ron said eagerly.

"Well, I remember a flash of green light, but that's it." He obliged. Civilians didn't need the messy details, like the murderer laughing as his mother screamed and a flash of green light filled his vision. As a child, he'd hated the color green. He remembered his Aunt Petunia saying that as a toddler he was terrified of it.

"Wow." Ron breathed, in awe, staring for a long moment before he realized what he was doing and quickly looked out the window.

The two boys sat in silence for a moment, with Shisui trying to think of something to ask that wouldn't risk showing how good he was with magic already. It was one thing he noticed in Diagon Alley – not a single child used magic on their own. They always asked a parent – or, in the case of a rare few, a house elf or a servant - accompanying them to do things for them.

"So, is your family magical or muggle?" he finally settled on the most mundane question he could think of.

"Er, yes I think so." Ron replied. "Mum's got a second cousin, a squib who's an accountant, but we never talk about him. I've got my mum and dad, a little sister, and five older brothers."

Shisui laughed. "Wow, five? I've never known anyone with that many siblings." Most Konoha shinobi parents didn't live long enough to have that many kids, in his generation. He shared a bit, to try to earn the boy's trust. "I was raised by my mum's sister, Aunt Petunia, and her husband my Uncle Vernon, and their son, my cousin Dudley. They're all muggle, so seeing magic everywhere is still pretty amazing to me."

It sounded like Ron was from a magical family that, regardless of who they supported during the war, seemed to hold some small amount of prejudice. _I wonder if squibs being rejected and abandoned causes muggleborns…_

The boys talked for a while, sharing family stories and talking about growing up, and eventually Ron started talking about his siblings and their accomplishments. "Everyone expects me to do as well as the others, but if I do, its no big deal, because they did it first. You never get anything new, either, with five older brothers. I've got Bill's old robes, Charlie's old wand, and Percy's old rat."

Ron reached inside his cloak's interior pocket and pulled out a sleeping fat grey rat. It didn't even wake up at being jostled and handled, it was sleeping so deeply. _Huh, interesting. Why's a house pet missing a middle claw?_

"His name's Scabbers and he's useless. He hardly ever wakes up." He could understand if it was several claws, an outer claw, or even the entire paw. "He's a boring pet. Doesn't do any tricks or have any magical quirk anything."

 _Must be a pretty old rat, if it was his older brother's. Prefects are supposed to be older students._

"Percy got an owl from dad for being made a prefect, but they couldn't aff-I mean, I got Scabbers instead." It was painfully obvious that Ron's parents simply couldn't afford to buy both boys an owl, and he saw nothing wrong with it.

"There's nothing wrong with not having any money. I didn't have any until two months ago either, when I found out my parents left me money. No one told me." He replied. "I grew up wearing Dudley's old hand me downs and sleeping with his old bedding sets and mattresses. I never got anything new, and I never got presents either. They were saving up to put Dudley in a private boarding school."

"Oh! You mean like Beauxbatons and Durmstrang?" Ron asked. They were the wizards' equivalent of private boarding schools, since they had expensive tuition whereas Hogwarts was free. Apparently Beauxbaton's student school supply aid Gringotts account was funded exclusively by one man named Nicholas Flamel.

He nodded. "Yeah, like them."

The boys talked some more, and then a plump old witch in a uniform popped the compartment door open. "Anything from the trolly, dears?" She was pushing a trolly full of all sorts of candy.

Ron looked at the cart longingly for a moment, before appearing resigned as he pulled out what appeared to be two crushed sandwiches wrapped in large napkins secured with what was no doubt a sticking charm. "No thanks, I'm all set."

He waved the trolly lady away. "No thanks, I brought my own."

He reached up to get his trunk out, set it on his bench, and pulled out his bento before putting the trunk back on the rack. His aunt had been buying him cheap sandwich stuff and crisps and fruit to have at home for lunch over the summer, so he packed some of it for lunch today. He'd been doing it all summer on his outings to Diagon Alley.

They had barely finished their lunch when the compartment door opened again and a girl with bushy brown hair and bucked teeth opened the door and poked her head in. "Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost his." She was already wearing the full school uniform.

Ron shook his head. "No, sorry. Harry?" the boy sent him a questioning look.

The girl's face lit up at the name. "Harry? Harry Potter?"

"Yep. The one and only." He said calmly.

"Are you really? I know all about you, of course. I picked up some books for a bit of background reading, because nobody in my family has magic at all. I'm the first. Did you know? You're in three different books. 'Modern Magical History' and 'The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts' and 'Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century'."

Shisui's first impression of the girl was that she was trying too hard to fit in, and that she was a bit of a know it all. On a genin team, she'd be well meaning but inadvertently cause fights. "Yeah, I read those. I read a lot over the summer. Didn't wanna be behind before I even get there." Not much else to do, anyways.

Hermione's face lit up. "You like to read too? Oh, I'm so glad! Did you read "Hogwarts: A History'?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I got that one too."

"What house do you think you two will be in?" She asked, looking between the both of them this time. "I've been asking around, and I think I want to be in Gryffindor. It sounds like the best, and I heard our Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore himself was in Gryffindor. He's a hero, you know? He defeated Dark Lord Grindelwald. He could be the Minister if he wanted, they even offered him the position, but he turned it down. Such a humble man, don't you think?"

Ron was looking at Hermione, dazed. "Yeah, humble. Right." He paused to mentally catch up for a moment. "I don't know. My mum and dad and brothers all got sorted into Gryffindor. I don't know what they'll say if I don't get in. I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad…but imagine if they put me in Slytherin?" The redhead boy made a face to emphasize his point.

"I hear you. That'd be bad, between the rivalry and it being You Know Who's house." he replied. "I don't know what house I'll be in. I don't even know what house my mother and father were in."

Ron sat up at this. "No one told you?" he said, a little incredulously. "Your mum and dad were both Gryffindors. They were friends with my mum and her brothers, and Neville's parents."

"Really? Maybe I'll be in Gryffindor then." He smiled, happy to hear more about them. _Gryffindor. So they were Gryffindors. Suits them, I think. They died bravely, selflessly._

"I hope you are too, Harry." Hermione replied. "Its getting late. I expect we'll be arriving soon, so you two had better change into your robes." With that, she stood and left, presumably to go find more new friends.

Ron gave him a look when she left. "Whatever house I'm in, I hope its not the same one as her."

He shrugged, not really wanting to comment one way or another. "I'm gonna get my robes on."

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. I got stuck, writing two Shisui-centric Harry Potter crossovers. And I also realized something mid-way through writing this…I completely forgot if I intended to make Shisui a horcrux in this. See this is why I delay so long…I get stuck with some random small detail like the characterization of his future housemates, and then get stuck even more cause I forgot my original plans and they're buried in some spiral somewhere.

* * *

A few important points!

So for this, no he's not a horcrux. I hate horcrux Harry cause my headcanon is that making one requires a special ritual, or else surely more people would have horcruxes. Maybe that's why I changed his wand? Probably. Yeah he's still got the scar, though, as you'll see. Its got a purpose, too.

I wasn't sure what to do with Itachi's crow jutsu. Chakra through can create genjutsu, not life, and Itachi's girlfriend's death was notable because genjutsu killed and that was supposed to be some impossible thing. So, can genjutsu cause injury or the illusion of injury? I wasn't sure. But given that Itachi implanted Shisui's sharingan into a crow, I decided that they're probably real crows.

No, just cause I introduced Ron and Hermione doesn't mean he's gonna be in Gryffindor. I haven't completely decided which house I want him in yet tbh. Even if I do know where I'm leaning. Which would you rather see? Gryffindor or Slytherin? Those are really the only options, there's very few canon characters in Hufflepuff and Slytherin.

Yes, Shisui still doesn't know Lord Voldemort's name or that he's still alive. No one's told him yet.


	10. Omake 2 - Birth and War

Omake 2 – Birth and War

He was born in hiding, during war in a large, two story wooden cabin in a forest that had been in the Potter family for centuries. His father had been born here. In the distance, one could hear what sounded like cracks and explosions hitting something.

The ear-piercing cries of a newborn baby filled the maternity room of the ancient Potter mansion.

"It's a boy! A strong, healthy boy." A woman in a white uniform dress with a crest on her hat said, proudly. With the wave of a stick and a few words in yet another new language, the baby was cleaned up. She wrapped him up in an unnaturally warm, blood-red blanket with golden lions prancing around on it.

The midwife handed the baby to Lily. "Congratulations, Mrs. Potter." She turned to acknowledge her husband. "Mr. Potter."

The baby quieted and stared up at the woman whose arms he had been placed in, mesmerized by her emerald green eyes and her flowing red hair, mere blobs of color at this stage.

"I'm terribly sorry, but we must hurry. What would you like to name him?" With a flick of her wand, an official looking paper appeared in the air with a quill poised and ready to write and papers and tools put themselves back in a briefcase with the same crest as her hat on it.

"Harry James Potter." A man with brown hair and blue eyes replied from the other side of the bed, standing beside his wife and newborn son. "After my grandfather, Henry."

"After the Wizengamot judge?" The midwife asked, as the quill wrote something on the paper without being held nor dipped in ink. _Strange._ "Fantastic, excellent choice. Godparents?"

"His godfather will be Sirius Orion Black and his godmother will be Alice Augusta Longbottom." James replied. Sirius was his choice, and Alice was his wife's choice.

The quill wrote down the names, and with a wave and a few words, the birth certificate sent itself away. "My job here is done. Your house elf should be able to take care of anything else."

A sudden, deafening explosion rocked the building, and as if from far away a clocktower bell that didn't exist rang three times. _"_ Merlin, they dismantled the wards!"

Mr. Potter cursed as he stood and looked over his wife and son. "Are you okay? Is Harry okay?"

The baby was wailing, terrified. "Guards!" he called over his shoulder at the birthing room door.

The midwife gave them both a look. She was terrified, scared for her life. "Congratulations, Mr. and Mrs. Potter. I will leave now, and you should do the same." She said, waving her wand again as two men in uniforms rushed into the room. Through the momentary opening of the door, the sound of yelling and running and fighting could be heard on the floor below, before it was shut and locked and warded by the younger of the two.

"Mr. Potter, we have to get you and your family out of here. Your location must have been leaked. Its not safe." The older one spoke. "There are too many."

James gave a noncommittal wave in their direction. "I know that! Auror Rogers, take Harry and Lily and get out of here. I will follow behind with Auror Smith. Now!"

The older of the two nodded and reached out to help Lily to her feet, but the woman pushed him away. She reached past the auror to grab her purse. She'd charmed it to be bottomless and stuffed everything she and Harry could possibly need into it two days ago, as she'd been advised to do just in case they got attacked.

"Crookshanks, come here boy." The cat heard its name and jumped up and cuddled against her chest and the purse, draping himself over her shoulder to secure itself. Voldemort was none too happy that Mr. Potter and Mr. Longbottom had refused to give up their pregnant wives to him several months ago.

"Come on, we've got to hurry, Mrs. Potter." He said, drawing his wand when he had an arm secured around her and her infant son.

No one had been paying much attention, but when the midwife waved her wand, nothing happened. She looked shocked. It hadn't failed her before, why now? Another wave, and a desperate cry. "St. Mungos!"

A heavy sense of dread filled the room, and baby Harry began to cry even louder than before. She looked at the Potters, all sense of rushed professionalism gone, replaced with terror. "Oh no. I can't get out. I can't get out." She hurried over to beg the baby's father. "Do you have floo powder, Mr. Potter? May I borrow your fireplace?"

The man shook his head. "No. For our safety, I had it shut down when we moved here, in case of spies. Now I know for sure, we have a spy in our midst. Rogers?" Mr. Potter demanded.

Auror Rogers waved his wand and words appeared in the air before him. By the man's confused expression, it took him a minute to translate it. "Oh no." He gave the new father a grave look. "Anti-apparition wards. They must be new. You-know-who must have a very good spell inventor working for him."

The younger one, Auror Smith, cursed under his breath. "So cursing his very name wasn't enough for him, huh?"

"Call your elf, Mr. Potter. A house elf's orders can get around any ward or spell. We'll cover your retreat." Auror Rogers said.

"Alright. If you're sure." Mr. Potter looked at the two aurors, mournfully. "Thank you for your service to my family, Auror Rogers, Auror Smith."

Auror Rogers nodded briefly, and went to the door, gesturing for his young partner to follow him. "Come on, Smith."

As the door closed behind the aurors, Mr. Potter turned to the empty space behind him. "Holly!"

With a crack a house elf with huge ears, bony limbs, and sickly-looking skin appeared, dressed in sewn together patches of various clothing items.

Mr. Potter didn't even wait for it to speak before he began to issue orders. "I need you to take Harry and Lily safely to Dumbledore. Straight to Dumbledore's side! Then come back for me and Doula, the midwife."

"Yes, master." The elf gave a bow and turned to hold Lily's hand, and she clutched Harry to her tightly with her other arm. "We must be going now, mistress." And with another crack and a distortion of their forms, they were transported away into thin air.

SCENE CHANGE; TIME SKIP

All of the stress and crying wore Harry out, and he slept through a lot of the subsequent exchanges. When the baby woke up, they were in a run down house that looked to be held together by magic alone, crowded into the space with nearly a dozen people present. Albus Dumbledore, James and Lily Potter, Sirius Black, Peter Pettigrew, Remus Lupin, Frank and Alice Longbottom, Augusta Longbottom, her husband Alfred, and husband's brother Algie Longbottom, and the two babies Harry and Neville. Harry fussed quietly at being woken up, and Lily soothed him, rocking him in her arms.

"I'm glad to see you all here. James, Frank, I thank you for only bringing up to three of your closest confidants, each." An old man with a long beard spoke, and everyone hushed at once to listen.

"I must ask that you all tell no one about this second Order meeting. I am sending the Potters and the Longbottoms into hiding, with the Fidelius Charm. Your confidants will be the only people who know of your whereabouts. The others will all be told one of several lies. Hopefully, this will weed out the traitor in our midst." Albus paused and took a drink from a goblet.

"You will chose from among your confidants who will be your Secret Keeper. The location where you will be hiding is your secret, and the Keeper of that secret cannot be tortured into giving out the information. It is impossible. He can only give up the location willingly – magic will ensure this. To anyone else, it will be like a muggle walking passed the Leaky Cauldron – they will have no idea you're there, right under their noses. You will be safe this way."

A moment's pause to digest the information. "I don't wish to sound arrogant, but I suggest that you both choose me as your secret keeper. I am the only wizard that Tom has ever feared."

James shook his head, not giving Lily a chance to speak up. "I'm sorry, Dumbledore, but I can't do it. It would be an insult not to trust my friends, after everything we've been through together." Lily looked disappointed beside him, but didn't speak up. She was too focused on soothing Harry back to sleep.

Albus nodded. "Yes, of course, my boy. Now, I will give you a few minutes to choose your secret keeper – choose wisely. Then, I will perform the spell. Afterwards, your secret keeper must tell your other confidants where you are staying. Then, they may visit you and provide updates and provisions as is necessary. Does everyone understand?"

Frank and Alice spoke with Augusta, Alfred, and Algie for several long moments before Frank walked forward and spoke up with their decision. "Alright, Dumbledore. We'll take you as our secret keeper."

The Potters and the marauders all talked amongst themselves after that. They needed to decide their secret keeper.

"I'll do it!" Sirius exclaimed confidently from Remus' side. "I'll be the secret keeper."

Remus looked at him, afraid. "But Sirius, everyone will suspect you! You're going to be everyone's first guess. You and James have been friends since you got sorted."

Peter, the shortest in the group, doesn't say anything, but his silence is normal. He just looks around at everyone, looking more anxious than normal.

"I knew you'd have my back, Sirius." James said, smiling proudly at his best friend.

Lily didn't look satisfied, though. "James, he's Harry's godfather. Isn't it a bit obvious?"

But James wasn't swayed. "It'll be fine! And besides, I trust him with my life."

Finally, as if an afterthought, Lily turned to Peter, the shortest and quietest one in the group. "What do you think, Peter?"

He kept his gaze to the floor, refusing to look any of them in the eye. "Well, well I think it is a bit obvious. You're right, Lily. Always are. Honestly, I feel guilty. I can never do anything to help."

Sirius just laughed at him. "That's cause you never try."

Remus elbowed him in the ribs sharply, silencing him. "You will be a lot of help, Peter. I'll be away a lot of the time spying on the werewolves and trying to win some of them to our side, so we'll need someone to bring them news and groceries. Right, James?"

James nodded. "Yeah, he's right. You're one of us, Peter – a marauder. Always will be."

Peter smiled a grim, sad smile up at them.

Several months later, they were back at square one, in the living room of their still new two-story house in Godric's Hollow, talking about the fidelus charm. James and Sirius had been cornered by a trio of death eaters while out on Order business. They were pursued on Sirius' motorbike through the city streets by the death eaters on broomsticks until finally the muggle cops came after them for speeding. They levitated the car and flipped it over onto the death eaters so they could make their escape back home.

"I don't think I can do this, guys." Sirius said, leaning his head back and turning his gaze to the ceiling. "What if I had gotten James killed tonight? You guys were right." He said, looking at Lily and Peter.

"I'm too obvious. Or what if they had captured me tonight? What happens if the secret keeper dies?" He looked around the room at James, Lily, and Peter, but no one had an answer for him. It only made him even more frustrated. "Its obvious they're coming after me for information. I mean who wouldn't?"

James nodded, his expression grim. "And we know they have a spy in the Order, cause we got attacked on the day Harry was born. We were lucky we had Holly to get us out of that one."

"But we had to let her go in order to get the house." Lily said. "Can't pay a monthly mortgage to someone who suddenly doesn't know your home exists, now can you? So we paid with Holly. If something happens, we won't have her to save us."

"We'll be fine, Lily. We're safe." James reassured. "Sirius is my brother in all but blood."

Sirius hit the couch in frustration. "But we're not safe, James! They knew right were we were, they didn't even have to look around for us. Some traitor is still feeding them information! And nobody knows what happens if I get killed. For all we know, the moment I die your house is visible to everyone and you'll all die!"

Everyone was silent for a moment, until Sirius spoke up again. "Our best bet right now is to switch secret keepers. Don't tell anyone, though. No one can be trusted. Just don't change our habits at all, and they'll keep thinking its me and come after me."

No one noticed Peter give a small smile at Sirius words, pleased that everything was going according to plan.

"That's a great idea, Sirius!" he exclaimed, grinning up at them from his spot slouched in the armchair. "They'll never suspect it. Kids at school could hardly remember my name, let alone that I hung out with you. The death eaters would never see it coming!"

And thus, the murders of Lily and James Potter was set in motion.

* * *

Author's Note – Thanks to a really wonderful review I got yesterday, I'm back at writing this fanfic! Thank you so much for all the support. Thanks to everyone for the encouragement. I don't remember who said it but someone pointed out in another review that we write for ourselves, and that really hit me because that's how I started out. I need to get back to that.

Point number one, Harry/Shisui really is a horcrux. Several people corrected me on this. It is also my opinion, after half a spiral notebook's worth of theorizing and character analyzing, that Dumbledore was aware from the beginning that Tom was interested in horcruxes. Any other information will be revealed in a future chapter. One i've only been looking forward to writing since i started this fanfic.

Point number two, please don't get mad at me for adding an omake and for taking so long to post and only posting an omake. That really ticked me off last time. This omake is meant to expand on points from the prologue, and it helped me get the background for my fic together in my head, writing it out as a chapter. If I could just insert it as a chapter between two already posted chapters, I would, but idk how to do that. So, an Omake it is. While I write a new chapter.


	11. Chapter 8 - Hogwarts

Author's Note

Fun fact that I forgot to mention last chapter, but as of now Shisui has no idea that 'He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is still alive or what his title is – Lord Voldemort. Things will get more interesting when he figures this out. I'm still figuring out how to make that happen as well as how to foster friendships outside of one's own house. I don't want to make what house he gets sorted into all that big of a deal.

* * *

Chapter 8 – Hogwarts

Quirrell was never the same after his year-long trip to Scotland, sometimes called Alba or Albania by the magical community. He had claimed he had a nasty encounter with a vampire coven that left him terrified of everything and kept him up at night. Claimed that his way of trying to work through that was to study the dark arts – so it should never happen again. That was a few years ago.

Pamona Sprout had came around to Quirrell's place to deliver some get well gifts from the staff, cards, and words of encouragement. That's when Albus heard the first reports that Quirrell was talking to himself. Several staged visits and check ins later, Severus was the one to report that Quirrell wasn't just talking to himself, but carrying on a conversation with an unseen entity, as if possessed. But that was the fantastical plot device of magical childrens' storybooks, wasn't it? Still, Albus was concerned when Severus reported that the voice sounded very familiar. After watching his memory in the pensive, they concluded that somehow, Tom was either possessing Quirrell or taking up residence within his home.

Personally, Severus believed that it was much more likely Quirrell was an agent rather than being possessed. No one in recorded history had ever been possessed. It wasn't something that even a ghost was capable of doing. It was the made-up stuff of children's storybooks and fairytales. Albus refused to tell him why he was so insistent that it was indeed possession, though, which annoyed Severus to no end because his occlumency skills were admirable. The information was safe with him. And so, Albus had set out to bait him into returning to Hogwarts so he could be dealt with before Tom could use him to successfully find a way to regain his body.

And now, two years of spying and planning later, it was all coming to fruition.

Severus stood before Albus' desk in the headmaster's office with a very angry look on his face.

"So, your plan is to allow Professor Quirrell to return to teaching, knowing full well that he is working with the Dark Lord? I thought when I switched sides that I would be protecting Lily's son, not putting him in harm's way!" Severus exclaimed, gesturing at the mirror of erised in frustration, where the stone was currently held.

"Even if he isn't really just Lily's son." The latter was muttered under his breath as an afterthought.

Albus shook his head. "You will understand in time, my boy. Our hands are tied. Either we do this, or we continue to wait and allow him more time to research. More than anything else, right now Tom wants to regain his body. That's the only reason that he would instruct Quirrell to return to Hogwarts to teach. Harry is secondary. To put it the muggle way, Harry is not even on Tom's radar right now. I assure you, I'm doing this simply to lure him out."

"If that's your plan, Albus, then why is the stone not better protected?" Severus demanded, "I'm sure even a particularly bright first year could get to it."

Albus levelled a serious, stern gaze at Severus. "Do you trust me, Severus? Have I been wrong, yet?"

Severus visibly deflated. "No, Albus. You haven't." It was James who was wrong, making Sirius the secret keeper instead of Albus like the Longbottoms did. His naivety and arrogance got Lily killed.

Albus smiled at him warmly. "Splendid! Now, tell me. What do you mean, Lily's son isn't just Lily's son?"

Severus gave a long-suffering sigh. All the leftover frustration left him, and he collapsed into one of the chairs in front of Albus's desk. "I've turned that night over and over in my head ever since it happened. Lily died because of me. My godchild died because of me. Harry was orphaned because of me."

He paused to try to collect himself, as the image of Lily's dead body flashed through his mind, her body crumbled to the floor. It was as if she had merely tripped and fallen and the life just left her without resistance. Her beautiful red hair fallen over the floor and her back and partially obscuring her face from view. Her striking emerald eyes were frozen, terrified, lifeless, tears staining her cheeks, her mouth still open, begging. He would never get that image out of his mind for as long as he lived. And Harry. Harry, crying and reaching out for him as his forehead bled with those strange red eyes.

"I put the memories in my pensive and I replayed them time and time again in order to try to piece together what I could have done. So I could see Lily again, alive and happy. But in doing so, I noticed something that no one else really put much thought into."

Severus looked up at Albus to guage his reaction. The old man appeared interested, curious. "Yes? We already know that Harry is the reincarnation of a Japanese-speaking person who had unruly black hair."

Severus paused a beat, and then spoke. "I was able to translate what he said that night. I assumed he was asking for a spell, well he wasn't. Its very garbled because he's a baby, but when he pointed to his mother, with the most confused and concerned expression on his face, the first thing he did was ask if she was killed peacefully. Not moments later, as we were leaving, he asked if his mother was dead. Death isn't something a small child can possibly understand, let alone a fifteen month old who just learned to talk."

Albus looked very concerned. "Well then. So he has someone else's memories? And not just flashes of someone else's life, but a full understanding of it. Possibly, even as if it were his own. I admit I didn't pay much attention to Harry's behavior. None of us did. We were more concerned with keeping him alive and hidden than we were with his oddities. Tom was sending his death eaters to track down, interrogate, and kill everyone who could possibly be sheltering them or have information on their whereabouts."

Severus nodded, his expression grim. "Its fortunate that Petunia and her family were able to be sparred, or Harry would not have been able to grow up safely. I wonder how a boy who isn't really just Harry will handle this situation."

SCENE CHANGE

They arrived at a train station in a small medieval village on the lake shore in the mountains of Scotland. It was a small town, easily less than a few hundred people inhabiting it. It was like stepping back in time. It was a fully self-sustaining, magical village and Shisui was truly in awe looking at it as the train puffed towards the station. _I've never seen anything like it here! Its like a village back in the Land of Fire._

Fields of crops and grazing livestock had replaced what must have originally been a forest. The small village was comprised almost entirely of little wooden thatched cottages and small, family-run shops and pubs. Zonko's Joke Shop, Honeydukes Sweets Shop, a pub called The Hog's Head, another pub called The Three Broomsticks, Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop, Hogsmeade Post Office, and several more.

An announcement came reverberating throughout the train from nowhere as it came to a stop at Hogsmeade Station. "Attention students, please leave your luggage on the train. It will be delivered up to your dormitories shortly."

The announcement repeated itself every few minutes as Shisui slowly followed Ron off the train and onto the platform. He was immediately hit with the overpowering sound of hundreds of children and teenagers all talking and yelling.

"Firs' years! Firs' years, over here!" A giant of a man was waving the youngest children over to him. He was easily over eight feet tall with long, shaggy hair and an unruly, tangled beard, wearing a black overcoat.

"Madara, who's he?" Shisui breathed, unable to contain his surprise. _He's bigger than the Akimichi! Maybe even bigger than the Raikage!_

"Oh, him? That's Hagrid, he's the gamekeeper." Ron replied, following his lead through the crowd. "He does odd jobs for Dumbledore."

"Oh. So he's just a member of staff, then?" He was sort of surprised, but pleased, that they hired staff members considering how easily you could just get magic to do something for you instead.

"C'mon, gather 'round! Any more firs' years?" Hagrid yelled, calling out into the crowd.

A few moments passed, and no one else showed. Shisui looked out into the crowd of older children making their way down the path to get in carriages being pulled by ghastly looking bony winged horses, to make sure. _I guess we're good. All the civilian children without colors lining their cloaks and ties are here._

"Alrigh', follow me. Mind yer step, now! Firs' years, follow me!"

Hagrid led them all down a steep dirt path. It was dark, with it being past dark by now and with the trees obscuring what little light the crescent moon above was giving off. Shisui didn't have any issues, but he both heard and saw the sillouettes of children tripping and stumbling and a few sniffles.

They arrived at the shore, and Hagrid ushered them into little boats without oars. _Does magic move them?_

"No more'n four to a boat!" Hagrid directed, sweeping an arm at the boats and directing the kids to climb on in.

Shisui felt uneasy, as he climbed into a boat with Ron, Hermione, and the toadless boy named Neville. _I wish I could've relearned water walking._ If something happened, he would be treading water with the rest of the kids instead of being able to protect them or even himself.

"Everyone in?" Hagrid asked, looking around at everyone for a moment. "Righ' then, forward!"

All at once, the little boats moved forward and directed themselves across the water's surface, as if they were following a set route, like a car on a rollercoaster. The lake was large and vast. After a while, they began to turn around a heavily forested shoreline.

"Yeh'll get yer firs' sight o' Hogwarts in a sec!" Hagrid called over his shoulder back at them.

As they turned around a bend, in the distance a great, vast castle sat perched atop the cliff face on the other side of the lake. "Woah!" Shisui gasped and there were a collective "ooooh!" from many of the civilian children. It looked almost otherworldly at night, with its many, many windows glowing and sparkling in the moonlight and its many turrets and towers reaching up to the starry sky above.

They came to shore in a hidden harbor through a tunnel that led under the cliff face surrounding the castle's shoreline. Children stumbled out of the boats, getting their shoes and the ankles of their pants all wet as they clambered out of the boats to the rocky, pebble-strewn shoreline of the hidden harbor.

There was a sudden cry from Neville. "Trevor!" He cried, reaching out to grab his lost toad. Children laughed around them as he blissfully held his pet in his hands.

They were led up a few flights of stone steps and up to the large oak door. After three knocks, it opened, and a witch with greying black hair in an emerald dress and hat stood there in the empty stone courtyard, waiting, with a stern look on her face.

"Here are this yeas' firs' years, Professor McGonagall." Hagrid said.

"Thank you, Hagrid." She graced him with a polite, forced smile. "I'll escort them from here."

Hagrid left out the doors, going who knows where, and Professor McGonagall led them through the courtyard. Shisui supposed perhaps it was used for ceremonies. It was certainly large enough, being about as big as a house. It wasn't furnished in any way like he would have expected, though; no fountain, no benches, no greenery. It was just a plain, open, walled courtyard without a roof. They came to a stop in front of the large oak double doors.

"Welcome to Hogwarts, everyone." Professor McGonagall said, smiling warmly down at the crowd of about 40 eleven year olds. "The start of term banquet will begin shortly just behind me in the Great Hall, but first you must be sorted into your houses. While you are here, your house will be like your family. You will eat together in the Great Hall, sleep in your house dormitory, and spend your free time in your house common room."

"The four houses at Hogwarts are called Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, and Hufflepuff. Remember, no one house is better than the other, and each house has produced outstanding witches and wizards. While you are at Hogwarts, your triumphs will earn your house points and any rule breaking and misbehavior will lose your house points. At the end of the term, the house with the most points will win the House Cup."

Professor McGongall paused a moment before finishing. "The sorting ceremony will begin in a few moments just beyond these doors in front of the whole school. I suggest you smarten yourselves up while you wait."

Her eyes lingered on Neville, whose toad Trevor was poking its head out of a pocket inside of his robe, and on Ron, who had yet to tuck in his shirt, as well as a few other students.

"Wait here, I will return when we're ready for you." And with that, Professor McGonagall walked not through the doors but down a hall. _Was there another way into the Great Hall?_

As soon as she left, chatter erupted among the children.

"I wonder how they're going to sort us." Shisui asked, looking around at Ron, Hermione, and Neville.

"My brothers said we've got to fight a troll." Ron replied, looking a bit faint at the thought.

Shisui laughed, a genuine, hearty laugh. "That's ridiculous!" He said when he caught his breath. _They'd never even make us Academy kids do that, let alone civilian kids._ "The houses are distinguished by personality traits…so maybe they just give us a quiz? Or maybe there's a spell that sorts us?"

Hermione looked nervous. "I don't know either. And I read Hogwarts: A History cover to cover twice! Harry's right, though, I doubt they would give us a sorting test that would hurt us, though."

"I hope its something easy, and quick." Neville piped up, his voice quiet. "I'll just fail anything else. My gran and uncle even thought I was a squib until I was 8." He looked ashamed at the thought.

 _Like an Uchiha that failed to activate their sharingan by the time they became a chuunin._

"I think I'd drop out if they sorted me in Hufflepuff." Came a drawling voice. They all looked to see a short boy with white-blonde hair and silver-grey eyes approaching them. In the distance, a small crowd of children was watching Draco. His friends, more than likely.

"I thought I heard the name Harry. Harry Potter's supposed to be here this year, right? I heard he was on the train." The boy said, looking around at them as if trying to place them. When he saw Ron, his friendly demeanor dropped and he scowled at him.

"That'd be me. I'm Harry Potter." Shisui spoke up, before the blonde could open his mouth and start what was sure to be a childish argument. "I'm Lord Potter-Black."

The blonde was distracted instantly, sputtering at the title. "Lord Potter-Black? Already?"

The skinny brunette boy who'd been watching the entire exchange from a distance, standing uncomfortably with Draco's friends, laughed at the exchange, giving a small knowing smirk at the blonde's expense.

"I'm Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." The blonde sobered up quickly enough, and held out his hand to shake. "Heir to the Malfoy name."

He shook the boy's offered hand. "Glad to meet you. My names Potter, Harry Potter." He replied, copying the way the boy had introduced himself. In the wizarding world, important people emphasized their family name. He looked over at the small crowd of children watching Draco.

"Ah, those are my friends. We're going to be in Slytherin. The two trolls over there are Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle. Heirs, sure, but dumb as a troll." Draco said, pointing at them as he introduced them. "The thin brown-haired boy over there is Theodore Nott. The tall black kid over there is The Black Widow's son, Blaise Zabini. The girl with the shoulder length black hair is Pansy Parkinson, and the blonde she's talking to is named Daphne Greengrass."

Shisui nodded in their direction. "Pleased to meet you." He recognized some of their surnames. Some of their parents were rumored to have been death eaters during the war, but got away with it by pleading the imperius, a powerful, forbidden mind control spell.

"Don't keep bad company, Potter." Draco cautioned, looking condescendingly down at Hermione, Ron, and Neville. "Who you befriend at Hogwarts can either make or break you. I can help you there."

Draco's offer felt both forced and somewhat genuine. Like someone asked him to but he did it because he was sort of interested too.

Shisui shrugged. "Sure, why not?" He didn't see the point in picking cliques. He would rather befriend a variety of people.

Professor McGongall chose then to return. "We're ready for you now. Please follow me."

She led them through the double oak doors into a hall as big as the Dursley's whole house. Four tables for students filled up most of the space, with a fifth table just for staff members. Perhaps just teachers, really. _I don't see Hagrid anywhere._

It was a lot to take in, being muggle-raised. Looking up, past the mass of lit candles floating like a cloud in the air, a vast, black, starry night sky took the place of the ceiling. It was comforting, familiar. _You never get to see the sky like this back in Surrey._ It was like being home in Konoha.

"Its charmed to look like the sky outside. I read about it in Hogwarts: A History." Hermione explained, to everyone and no one in particular.

Suddenly children shrieked and screamed, and his hand instinctually reached to grab a kunai from his leg hostlers, eyes scanning the room for the source of the perceived threat. Then, he saw it. The children's sudden terror. _Ghosts?!_ The kunai, just barely peeking out of the hostler, was abruptly dropped back in.

Ghosts big and small, young and old, were scattered around the room, watching them. Some were waving, some were shouting words of encouragement, and a few were arguing about someone named Peeves in a corner.

 _The dead can really come back and haunt you here?_ _Like to fulfill whatever they didn't get to finish in life and to get revenge and all that. I thought that was just some English kids' story type of thing!_ He never wanted to be back in Konoha more than in this moment. _I hope just this world's dead, or I'll have a whole squadron or few after me._

His reaction didn't go unnoticed up at the staff table. Feeling eyes on him, he turned to look and saw a man in his thirties with long, greasy black hair and dark eyes hard looking at him, as if trying to decipher something. _Who's he?_

The man considered him for a moment longer before looking away, turning his attention to Professor McGonagall. Scroll in hand, she led the children to a stop in front of a ragged looking hat on a stool. It was patched and frayed in many places. _You'd think magic would be able to keep it in better condition, if its apart of the sorting ceremony._

"When I call your name, you will forth and sit down. I will place the sorting hat on your head, and you will be sorted into your houses." Professor McGonagall explained.

Several of the children reacted with a mixture of relief and frustration.

"So all we've got to do is try on a hat?" Ron exclaimed. "I'll kill Fred and George. They were going on about dueling a troll!"

Shisui sniggered beside him. "Told ya."

Ron, Hermione, and Neville had all been sorted into to Gryffindor while Draco and his friends were all indeed sorted into Slytherin. _I wonder if blood plays a roll. Ron's whole family is Gryffindor, and so were my parents._

It must have been only five or ten minutes before it was his turn. "Potter, Harry!"

Whispers broke out all over the hall as he stepped forward to sit on the stool. Even the teachers at the staff table perked up with obvious interest. _I really am a celebrity here, huh? Like some Hokage's kid._ _And now they'll know my face, too._ He had enjoyed his relative anonymity up until now. Plus, there were risks, and he wasn't as strong as he used to be.

The last thing he saw before his vision was covered by the sorting hat was students all over the hall leaning over at their tables and craning to get a good view. _Well, here goes nothing._

"Hmmm…difficult, very difficult." Said an unfamiliar voice in his head. "Plenty of courage, I see…"

He jumped in shock and nearly tore the hat off his head. _What the hell?!_ _It can see in my head and read my mind? So it knows everything about me, about the village, about my family!_

His chest tightened with anxiety as the full weight of the situation hit him. And just destroying it wasn't an option.

"Don't worry, young man. Relax. All I can hear are your thoughts. I'm not here to divulge you secrets, just to sort you. I might be a national treasure, if you would, but I'm still just a charmed hat. All I can see is what I need to see to sort you – your personality traits. I am bound by the very magic that gives me life to keep my silence, even to the headmaster himself."

Sensing no lies in the hat's statement, he relaxed. _That's interesting, though. Magic can impose rigid limitations. Wonder how it works? Could be useful._

"As I was saying, you've got plenty of courage, and you're brave, willing to defend and to protect. But you're not a risk taker, impulsive, or short tempered. You aren't particularly noble either. So that rules out Gryffindor. You're cautious and ambitious and value family ties like a Slytherin but you're also loyal and hard working like a Hufflepuff. You're very curious and intelligent, like a Ravenclaw. Hmmm but where to put you…."

Slytherin came with the job of being a shinobi, he thought. Sure, he was loyal, but not as blindly as he once was.

"If you say so, then that rules out Hufflepuff. So, what'll it be? Slytherin or Ravenclaw?"

He thought long and hard about that. By the looks of the students at the tables he'd be here a whole seven years. _Well, I'm not Shunshin no Shisui for nothing. No one else was able to turn a common, useless D-rank jutsu into something that got them flee-on-sight warnings in all the greater shinobi nations during the war with Kiri. Plus, I'll just be eating and sleeping there anyways, right?_

Decision made, he turned his attention back to the hat.

* * *

Author's Note:

I want to see what you all say! Slytherin or Ravenclaw? Personally, I think he's more Ravenclaw than Slytherin. However, if I go with Slytherin, there's a lot of room to work with that's canon – death eaters kids, parents wanting to recruit said kids, etc. If I go with Ravenclaw, I'll have to actually make up characters as his housemates and plot lines for them cause there's next to nothing on them other than their names for most of them. I mean eitherways, its easy to write him having friends in multiple houses – study groups, classes, sitting at another table, etc. It'll just affect non-plot stuff more.


	12. Alert: Rewrite

Author's Note:

Alert everyone who has been reading and enjoying this story! It is officially abandoned. I am rewriting it! Its already posted, its called "The Legacy of Shisui of the Body Flicker". How original. I don't think you can post links, right? Or I would. I feel like it'd be easier to just link you all straight to it. I got this idea today reading Naruto and couldn't help myself.


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